


The W Hypothesis

by ElinorX, Lorquian



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Assassins, Espionage, F/M, Family, Gen, Lies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2018-01-14 15:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 86,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1271697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElinorX/pseuds/ElinorX, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorquian/pseuds/Lorquian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story begins with a photograph of a woman, a case folder labelled W, and a child’s bout of curiosity. </p><p>(1890's!Au & alternate interpretation of Jack the Ripper)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

 

There are two infamous phenomena in late nineteenth century England that are forever remembered and debated by historians and criminologists: Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes.

The former is the title given to a London serial killer renowned for his brutal murders and mutilations of impoverished prostitutes in 1888. The latter is a self-made consulting detective for the Scotland Yard, who some would claim was the greatest investigator in British history.

However, this is not a tale of how the clever detective captured “the First Serial killer”. If I were to tell that story, I’m afraid it would be as dull as it is disappointing, for officially, the Whitechapel Murders remains to this day a mystery, and its files are stored away somewhere deep within the legal archives. Unofficially though, the truth about the Ripper is no secret to either the consulting detective or the handful of people granted the highest level of clearance in the British government. So the case, in actuality, is solved, down to the very last detail, though what is revealed proved very far from the expected. Be warned that in the narrative I am about to recount there are, in fact, no desperate prostitutes trading sex for food, and unsurprisingly, more than one murderous psychopaths.

The story begins not in 1888, but in 1896, with a photograph of a woman, a case folder labelled _W,_ and a child’s bout of curiosity. The first location of interest is not the disease-ridden streets of the east London slum, but a warm, dimly lit third floor bedroom of 221B Baker Street, belonging to wily seven year old boy.

Said boy was born into this world late in the summer of 1889, to the great consulting detective mentioned earlier and his wife Molly, née Hooper. The neighbours would tell you that he came with the thunderstorm, riding on the howling easterly wind and midst the raging downpour. Mrs. Hudson, the housekeeper, said that his eyes were silver like lightning and his soft baby skin was washed pale by the rain. The church christened him James Aodhán [AY- den, meaning: fire] Holmes, but his father calls him Hamish. 

Nothing about James is simple or easy. Precocious, blunt, and armed with a brutal cleverness that was more troublesome than endearing, he was as difficult to raise as any child could be. Even from a young age, he exceeded at rules-breaking, but he always did so wittily, thoughtfully, half-cloaked under the pretence of guileless innocence. It seems what he craves more than the adrenaline and the thrill of committing wicked acts, is the bone-deep satisfaction of getting away with it. There is a deviousness to him that doesn't just come from his father, an innate quality which no firm hand or scolding could force out of the boy.

Lord Mycroft Holmes, James’ uncle, once said coincidences don't exist, because the universe is rarely so lazy. There are exactly one hundred and seventeen case files in Sherlock’s study, of which one hundred and sixteen are neatly cataloged by the detective, available on the shelves for his son to browse and challenge himself. The remaining case file, the W dossier, is buried underneath piles of paper and trinkets in one of the locked drawers of Sherlock's desk, clearly unintended for the prying eyes of a nosy seven year old. And yet, it is this exact file that James finds worthy of his attention. 

Contrary to some later rumours, the W dossier is _not_ Sherlock's secret file on the Whitechapel Murder, but a thin meagre folder, containing only a couple of insignificant statements and a client profile. The focus of James’s fascination is not the case itself, but a picture of a woman clipped on the inside. Being a perceptive child who adores his father, James is thoroughly familiar with Sherlock’s habits and practices, and he knows that his father loves to collect photographic evidence of cases as a source of visual stimulus to his deduction process – bodies of the victims, crime scenes, articles of clothing, etc. - but he never keeps pictures of the clients themselves.

“The Woman” is the only exception.

A dozens things could be deduced about sentiment based on this fact alone, but James does not make that leap. Instead, he is distracted by the quickening of his own heartbeat as he stares longer into the eyes of the woman. He finds himself doing the irrational, wondering what colour those lovely almond shaped eyes could be, but somehow he already knows that they’d be blue like his own, varying to green or grey depending on the time of day. His hands shake a little, for reasons he cannot fathom, and for the first time in his life, he is consumed by guilt as he pulls the picture from the clip holding it in place. Quietly, he places the file back where he found it and dashes upstairs to his room so he can inspect the picture some more.

That night, he slips the photograph between the pages of Dante’s Purgatorio and hides it on the second highest level of the bookshelf above his bed and tells himself that tomorrow he’ll return it to the dossier.

The next morning comes, and the photo remains in the boy’s custody.

As the days trickle on, James grows more and more afraid that his father has discovered what he’d done, though his fear is unwarranted, since Sherlock never reacts badly to anything clever. When the initial guilt and fear faded, James decides to share with his best friend Annabel Watson what he’d found and his ambitions to figure out who this woman is and why she is important enough for his father to keep a photograph of her. It is this ambition that leads James and Annabel into the dangerous realm of The Ripper, for unbeknownst to the two children, they have found a loose thread in the complicated entanglement of the Whitechapel Murders, unwittingly linking two pieces of the puzzle that no one in the initial investigation had thought of before.

One can appreciate how different the story would be had James opted for one of the other one hundred and sixteen cases, how much safer and easier it’d be if he just went to his father for answers, or searched a little deeper into that locked drawer. In that drawer, he would've found a small wooden box containing a series of coded telegraphs, sent to his father in the months preceding his birth, from a woman named Irene Adler.

 


	2. I

James is delighted.

Early that morning, his Mummy made it known that she will be partaking in some adult womanly activity around town with Mrs. Watson, which requires her to be out for the majority of the afternoon. Since Father is away on a case, this leaves him in the sole custody of their housekeeper Mrs. Hudson. Such unsupervised freedom (because Mrs. Hudson favours a 2pm nap which James is sure to convince her to take and leave him to his own devices) is a rare treat indeed, and he could barely contain his excitement just thinking about it. Better yet, he gets to share this luxury with Annabel Watson.

It is just a little past noon, and with a belly full of biscuits and wicked ideas, James lurks in the staircase, eavesdropping on Molly’s poor attempt to escape the burdensome duty of ‘shopping’ whilst being pushed and shoved by the combined effort of Mary and Mrs. Hudson. After Mummy is dragged off by Mrs. Watson, James puts on his most innocent face and recruits the aid of his right hand woman (er girl), sweet polite Annabel who can do no wrong, and the two of them effectively convince Martha to take a restful and deep nap.

_We’ll just be in our room reading, Mrs. Hudson. Annabel is with me, Mrs. Hudson, she’s older, and she’ll keep me in line. There is no need to worry, Mrs. Hudson. We won’t sneak out or set the house on fire, Mrs. Hudson._

They wait half ‘n hour until they are sure Martha has fallen soundly asleep before creeping slowly downstairs.

 _The game_ , James declares, _is on!_

The two children tiptoe down the perilous creaky stairs, and navigate through the quiet plains of the sitting room until they reach the outskirts of the forbidden east wing, a realm never before explored by young detectives – Sherlock’s private study.

“Is it locked?” Annabel looks to her friend, fearing that all their planning is for naught.

“Shouldn’t be,” responds James, tentatively trying for the handle. The door clicks open. Success.

“Now come on, I reckon we only have another twenty minutes before the beast awakes.” The boy ushers his companion into the room and close the door behind her quietly.

“Mish, that’s a rude thing to say about Mrs. Hudson!”

James puts on his most offended and shocked face, “I would never say such a mean thing to the sweet, lovely Mrs. Hudson. But she is not Mrs. Hudson. She’s The Keeper, beastly enslaver of all that’s exciting and adventurous.”

Amused, Annabel giggles, a pearly laughter bubbling forth. James grins back, but shushing her kindly, “Keep it down, you’ll wake her up!”

“My apologies. We can’t have that.” She looks around the messy study, “So what are we here for?”

"Going through some of Father's old cases. I want to find an interesting one to work on."

"But you know the interesting ones are always hard." Annabel points out, but not mean-spiritedly. Though clever as well, she is the more prudent of the two of them, and James likes that about her. Well... ‘Appreciates’ would be the better word (because he can't be known for saying that he _likes_ her).

Annabel is staring back at him, eyes gleaming with interest. She is too careful and too aware of his pride to ask; she understands him. James likes that about her as well. _Damn_. He glances away, turning his face down to hide a blush. _Curse his pale complexion!_

"I found a particularly difficult one, so I thought perhaps you could help me. If you'd like," He adds.

Annabel grins, clearly pleased, “Well what are we waiting for?”

Needing no further encouragement, James gets to work. He expertly picklocks open one of Sherlock’s private drawers and extracts from the bottom of the pile of junk a beige dossier. The letter W marks the otherwise unblemished cover in elegant cursive writing.

If Annabel finds her friend’s early onset of criminal nature upsetting, she makes no show of it. Instead, she watches in fascination and awe, and perhaps a tiny bit of healthy envy for James’s skills. You should know that despite what everyone thought of her, she was as much of an angel as Queen Victoria was a harlot. During all my years of employment in the web, I only became briefly acquainted with Annabel, but even so, I can confidently guarantee you that she made no less of an impression on me than James Holmes, or as he is later renowned, Nero Wolfe. Indeed, what is more dangerous than a wild wolf is one wearing the skin of a lamb.

Of course, the Annabel I know is not the child of eight sneaking into Sherlock Holmes’s study, so I suppose it’s only right to advise you to take what I say with a grain of salt. Though I try to gather material from diverse sources and first-person accounts, on the topic of Annabel’s early psychology I really have very little insight other than what I’ve gathered from our short affiliation and snippets of details those intimately associated with her have revealed to me.

A colleague of mine once joked ‘one does not simply speak of Annabel Watson.’ Later it was rumoured that he blabbed quite a bit during a drunken outing (and come to think of it, I never saw him again after that).

But… I digress.

Presented with the W dossier, the child Watson accepts it graciously and with undiluted glee. Opening it up, her smile slowly fades, “The Woman. What woman? Mish, there is barely anything in here; and what messy handwriting! It doesn’t belong to my father.”

True, John is usually the one who writes the reports, and for a doctor his penmanship is surprisingly legible.

“Nor mine.” James’s voice is small. “That’s not why I want you see the file, though.”

Annabel looks up her friend, but he can’t meet her eyes. He keeps one hand in his trousers’ pocket, and his gaze fixed on the ground. If that isn’t obvious enough, James chews on his bottom lips, a sure tell of his scrambled nerves.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me, Mish.” The blonde shuts the case file and hands it back to her friend, “Now, why don’t you show me what’s in your pocket. How bad can it be?”

James nods, letting out a short sigh. He isn’t an indecisive child by any stretch of the imagination, but he is a child, and just like any child, he is entitled to moments of imparity at the expense of his pride. James idolises his father, a man whom he deems superior to any other, and in his eyes Sherlock is infallible – one step down from God (which according to Sherlock is not real) – and therefore everything James strives to be.

His heart thumps in his chest, and he fumbles the photograph in his pocket.

_Father never falters. Father always knows what to do. Father has no fear. Father wouldn’t be afraid to investigate this case._

Oh that poor boy, if he only knew how much turbulence (and painful sentiment) his father went through for the woman in the picture.

“I don’t know who she is, but Father keeps a picture of her. He never keeps photographs of any of his clients.” James pulls the old photograph from his pocket, with the same reluctance a lesser boy would feel towards a shiny new toy. Of course he’s keen to show it off (look what I found, look what I have!) but it doesn’t take away the fearful possibility that someone will steal it from him. Still, he trusts Annabel; Annabel would never let him down.

"Oh. She’s…James, she’s beautiful. Who do you think she is?"

Annabel’s question swims in his head - oh the possibilities! - but at the same time a strange sense of dread weighs down in his stomach, and he has no idea why. He tells himself he won’t be afraid of the answer because one should never hide from the truth.

“Mish - " Annabel frowns in concern, leaning forward to try to catch a look at his downcast face, "What is it? What’s wrong? Do you…know her?"

Know her? No. James has never met this woman in his life, and seeing that she is dead (as indicated by the bolded D E C E A S E D), he never will. Yet, there was a familiarity to that face that he cannot explain, and it gnaws at him, this vague sense of recognition.

"No, I don’t know her," he says finally, "But I think it would be a fascinating endeavour to find out. There is a date on the case report. The 25th of April, 1888. Uncle John keeps journals of the cases, does he not? Father only has reports; if we want to have details, having a look at those journals would be a good place to start. What do you say, Watson? Do you want to take the case?"

Annabel hesitates, but not out of lack of interest or fear. Glancing down at the photograph, and then glancing back up at her friend, she blinks, trying to make sense of a tangled mass of thoughts. There is something there, buried within the mess, but everything is too clouded by her own excitement over the adventure James proposed. Still, it is there, that thought - she just has to find its end.

"Well?" James urges impatiently.

The corner of her lips curls up into a small, ambitious smile, John’s smile, “Oh definitely.”

 

~~~

 

The Old Nichol, situated between High Street, Shoreditch, and Bethnal Green, was regarded as the worst slum of East London. You won’t see it anymore, since the government’s de-slumming initiative began in 1898, but back then it was a cesspool filled not only with the poorest of the poor and unfortunate immigrants from all over, but with criminals, prostitutes, and the sort of people a young woman should not been seen affiliating with.

On the very day James and Annabel decide to embark on their investigation, two women meet in the heart of the Old Nichol, in one of the abandoned flats. One is disguised as a labourer. The other doesn’t bother with a disguise.

“This is quite the safe house you’ve built,” the dark-haired woman, one without a disguise, comments as she glanced around the space. Though not luxury, it is clean and tidy in every manner, not at all a reflection of its external and neighbourly conditions. Behind closed windows and doors, no one would think it’d be so… habitable.

Neither attempts to light a candle (that would be too obvious), but they are not people who are afraid of the dark.

“Old habits,” the blonde replies dryly. “I’m surprised you don’t have one.”

“I don’t need one, not when I’ve got people who do.”

“What are you doing here? More importantly, why have you contacted me? I thought I made my stance very clear when we last spoke.”

“It’s been seven years, Addison. Aren’t you curious where I’ve been all this time?”

Addison glares, “No. Though I’m sure there are two people who would love to know.”

That cold remark silences her friend immediately. A shadow falls over her pale visage and she seems to shrink slightly in stature. When she speaks again, her tone loses some of its edge, “There is work to do in London. I need your help.”

Addison refuses flatly, standing up to go. “No. I’m not that person anymore, Nina.”

“Trust me, you’ll want to be part of this, Sisi.” A sealed envelope slides across the bed where Addison sits.

‘Nina’ watches her friend struggle with herself. The temptation to read what she brought here is strong. Choosing to give the other some privacy, she moves to stand by the balcony door and pulls out a cigarette. In the dark, the tip ignites like a tiny pulsing star, and with each sucking breath, draws closer to its supernova, a tragic but inevitable explosion. She holds the essence of its life in the cavity sealed by those thin, brutal lips, only for a moment or two, before expelling it out into the cold biting air. The cigarette shrivels within its slender mahogany shell, crumbling downwards with a slow, defeated finality. Under the moonlight, its glowing silver soul weaves the veil that shrouds its slayer, to whom it so willingly sacrificed itself, and though its body is now no more than ashes, she is eternal.

The blonde woman watches her younger companion stare callously at the cigarette stub, wondering if they will all become the tobacco between her teeth – set aflame and burnt through, like unwitting idiots who do not see their demise until their carcasses have become the dirt beneath her heeled slippers.

“So,” the raven-haired woman yanks the bud from the holder, tramples it with barely a passing thought, and replaces it with another. Quick, lustrous eyes flick to her silent companion, “What will it be?”

“I have my terms as well.”

“I won’t ask you compromise your daughter; you know that’s not how I operate.”

“Touch Annabel and I will destroy you, but…that wasn’t who I was referring to.”

A dent forms between those perfectly shaped eyebrows. She tilts her head a degree to the left as confusion fleets across her pale features, but her befuddlement is quickly replaced by amusement and a smirk. “Oh my dear Sisi, you take me for the sentimental type.”

“No, I only ask because I know you are not.”

A pause.

“Nina, you’re going to break her heart.”

Irene Adler takes a long drag from her thin cigarette holder and turns away from her companion. She’s not here to have a conversation about broken hearts.

“Is that a yes then?” Irene asks instead, the cigarette quickly losing flavour on her tongue. She feels mildly disgusted.

Addison walks until she stands directly before her friend, plucks the half smoked cigarette from its seat, and drags a long, heavy drag. “Welcome back to London.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be slightly late due to my finals. I'll be gone for about three weeks. Thanks for reading! :)


	3. II

_Whoever thought it was a good idea to bring back tight lacing really ought to be committed for crimes of unnatural cruelty._  Molly shifts uncomfortably in her evening gown and flutters the silk fan in desperation. It doesn’t help.  _Dear god, Mrs. Hudson, you really did a number on me this time,_  she groans inwardly.

“Thirty-five and never been married! I can hardly believe Lord Aldenham would marry an old maid.” A woman dressed in a gown of an alarming shade of pink with too many frills and lace chatters to her group of female peers. Molly doesn’t really know her, and frankly is glad of it.

“I heard she is incredibly wealthy, an heiress of some new oil money from the colonies” another lady, who looks like she put an entire peacock in her hair, elaborates. “One can only imagine how unattractive she must be.”

“Why would you say that?” a third chimes in.

 _Because a pretty young woman of clean pedigree and wealth would have a plethora of suitors waiting to wed her._   _She could have her choosing,_  a sarcastic voice in Molly’s head comments.  _As if that’s all it matters._

“It’s obvious isn’t?” the first woman explains. “Perhaps she’s so ugly that no man would want to marry her even for her money.”

Molly rolls her eyes. “I think you’re giving men too much credit.”

‘Pink Chatterbox’ shoots her an annoyed look and continues, ‘Or worse, she’s…one of them.”

“One of whom?” the third woman, a young, innocent thing, asks.

'Peacock-hair' leans in closer, a conspiring glint in those beady black eyes, “A sapphist.”

Before the other ladies could erupt into mindless excitements again, Molly speaks up, “Or perhaps she just has grander aspirations than husband, marriage, and children.”  _Such as a doctorate in medicine._  “For the record, the politically correct term is homosexual. Excuse me.”She stands up from the plush chaise, and takes a glass of wine from a servant and marches off with a disgusted grimace.

Through the crowd, she spots her husband standing alone under the shadow of a marble pillar, brooding.

 _You’re better off forgetting your foolish thoughts, dear. You’ll be the wife of a Holmes. They are one of the bluest bloodlines in England, do you understand? Granted, he is not a Lord like his brother, but you are not marrying a commoner, and your employment will reflect badly on your husband._  Her mother’s – god rest her soul – reminder churns the contents of her stomach and sends shots of acid up her oesophagus. Those were the words she said to Molly as she laced her daughter into her wedding dress, and it rings in her mind now, completely drowning out the sound of the orchestra.

 _You’re dead Mother, you don’t rule my life anymore._ Molly grips her wine glass tighter.

 _No of course not, you have a husband for that,_ her mother would say.

_Sherlock is different._

_Maybe he is, but what of that Lord brother of his? Or his Lady mother? Would you really heartlessly shame your husband in front of his peers?_

_He wouldn’t care._

_And you? Would you care?_

“There you are. I’m bored.” 

Drink in hand, Molly approaches Sherlock, who has all the look of agony of a person suffering. She opens her mouth, but the question doesn’t come out.

“She is an American heiress with new oil money, in her mid thirties, has never been married, and therefore is unanimously considered an ‘old maid’ by her peers and through dubious deduction methods deemed unquestionably ugly. And if I have to hear anyone say another word about her, I will be sick,” she says instead.

“I’ve tried, but it’s just not possible.” Sherlock groans. 

“Tried what?”

“I’ve searched very earnestly for any small morsel of cares to give, but unfortunately there are none to be found. I do think it’s medically plausible to actually die from lack of stimulation, and since this party is providing none, Molly I fear for my life.”

Molly loops her arm though Sherlock’s and together, the two Holmeses gaze at the party and the merry pandemonium in irritation.

At 70 years old the newly raised 1st Baron Aldenham, Lord Henry Gibbs, is rumoured to be wed. A landmark birthday, a peerage and a new fiancée - the coincidence of three wonderful occasions calls for one massive party. To Sherlock, this is all fine and dainty, that is, if he hadn’t been asked - no, demanded - to attend.

_Mingle. Smile. Don’t be yourself._

Mycroft, that complete arse, Lord I-cannot-attend-so-as-my-brother-you-must-in-my-stead Holmes, is going to die a slow and painful death. Sherlock has planned at least five successful ways to murder his brother and get away with it. However, by the rate this evening is progressing, he harbours serious doubts that he’ll survive long enough to complete his revenge. 

Gods be good, he’s never been so bored his entire life, and right now, he is seriously considering drowning himself in the wine barrel and leaving his poor wife to deal with these pretentious, dull-minded blue bloods.  

Molly, bless her beautiful open heart, took Mycroft’s advice, and is all quaint charms and quiet English grace. 

"Can we leave -" 

"No love, here," she plucks another glass of wine from a caterer’s plate and thrusts it into his hand. "Drink. It’ll make you feel better. Trust me it’s delicious." 

Her own glass is empty. Sherlock quirks an eyebrow as she exchanges it for another. “How many have you had?” 

"Not enough, since I’m pulling all the weight in our social engagements, and no, insults do not count as proactive conversation," Molly smiles teasingly, her doe brown eyes warm with affection and mirth. Alcohol makes her less fidgety and nervous. If it’s even possible, Molly is probably the one of the few people on the planet for whom alcohol consumption and grace is positively correlated.    

"Oh smile, Sherlock. They're not all that bad." 

Sherlock sighs, noticing the slight rosiness of her cheeks that compliments her champagne coloured gown. She is lovely tonight, truly, truly lovely, and significantly less dull than the other females in the room, for which he is entirely grateful.

He watches Molly take another sip of her wine and puts on a smile as people approach, “MP Gibbs, how lovely it is to see you again.”

Aaron Gibbs, Lord Aldenham’s eldest son, kisses Molly’s silk-clad hand, “Mrs. Holmes, pleasure, as always.” His grin widens at the man standing beside her. “Billy!”

Sherlock glowers.

“Oh cheer up, I only jest. Sherlock, how are you?” Aaron laughs, and they shake hands.

The Gibbses and the Holmeses have been firm friends for generations, ever since their grandfathers attended Cambridge together. Of Lord Aldenham’s five sons, Aaron is the most intelligent and least pretentious, which makes him tolerable in Sherlock’s books. He doesn’t have many friends amongst his peers (well he doesn’t have that many friends, full stop), but Aaron can almost be considered one. Currently, he is the MP for the City of London, succeeding after his father’s term in office.

"Aaron, please give my congratulations to Lord Aldenham, and on Mycroft’s behalf. I’m afraid he couldn’t be here tonight." Oh, look at him, playing nice and proper. Sherlock can see from his peripheral vision Molly biting down on her lips to try to keep a straight face.

Aaron takes it with a good-humoured chuckle. “Typical Mycroft.” He turns to the people around him and does a round of introduction. Sherlock plasters on a smile and lets the information flow right past his head. He can’t give a flying - 

"Of course, there is more than one reason to celebrate tonight," A woman, Lady-whoever-of-whatever-the-fuck comments with a sly grin. "I hear your Father has found himself a new lady, and so soon after your mother’s passing." 

Aaron responds without a beat, “Ah yes. I am quite happy for Father; he deserves it. He is getting on in the years, and my brothers and I feel he should not be without companionship. After all, Mother has been gone for two years -”

"Two years, hardly long for a mourning period. Certainly not by Her Majesty’s standard."

Sherlock throws the woman a furtive side-glance and almost snorts. Early forties, secret smoker, a sore at the corner of her mouth covered up by make-up, slightly swollen lymph nodes, wide sperth between her and the man who is sure to be her husband - Sherlock would recommend a lawyer for the divorce, a doctor for the syphilis, and maybe a big clean mirror so she can take a good look at herself and see the hypocrisy. It can be more easily ignored than syphilis but is no less destructive.  

"Yes well, we cannot all possess the same level of fortitude as our Queen," Molly ventures, nodding towards Gibbs, "I’m sure she is lovely. Will we be meeting her soon? Lord Aldenham has yet to arrive." 

"Father is held up at our family firm, but he has…"

Sherlock tunes out his peer as another man (Sir? Lord? Count? Cross-dresser, has a more dogs than one should, and needs to ease off the laudanum) makes a subtle comment about Anthony & Co’s financial security in regards to Lord Aldenham’s upcoming nuptials. He rolls his eyes; clearly this man has no more brain matter than his diseased wife. Lord Aldenham’s fiancée comes from money, big oil money as a matter of fact, so it’s hard to say who is “gold-digging” who at this point. Sherlock drinks his wine, frowning as he realises it is finished, and hands it to a passing servant. For the umpteenth time, he curses Mycroft in his mind for dooming him to a night of high-class stupidity and conversations revolving around an America- 

"Oh, here is Father." 

Suddenly, Sherlock is grateful that he is not holding the crystal glass anymore because he would’ve dropped it. Descending down those marble stairs, clad in blood-red gown, black lace gloves, and diamonds, is a woman he hasn’t laid eyes on in seven years. 

_I’m in Buenos Ares. Dinner?_

_…_

_Parenthood doesn’t suit either of us, but apparently our biology doesn’t seem to care._

_…_

_I heard you married. Congratulations! What is she like?_

_I’m not jealous. Well, maybe just a little._

_…_

_Your child won’t stop kicking me. Tell him to stop. Or her._

_You never told me, which did you want?_

_…_

_Florida is amazing. Let’s have dinner._

_…_

_Does she know about me? Don’t tell her; you’ll break her heart._

_Nothing has to change. You needn’t be conflicted. The child will stay with me._

_…_

_If it’s a boy, should we take Dr. Watson’s advice?_

_…_

_I miss you._

_…_

_Early August. I’m in Toronto. Come. Please._

_…_

Pages of her telegraphs fly in mad torrents inside his mind palace, its edge sharp like razors, slicing his skin as he tries to push them back behind locked doors. And there, in the center, he stands trapped in a merciless storm of memories and voices – her voice, every articulation, intonation and punctuation, like intangible silk of a spider’s web, weaves a tight vice around the heart he claims not to have.

_He was born of the fire._

_Goodbye Mr. Holmes._

Since Irene had fled London in 1888, she had sent him a total of 9 encoded telegraphs. The last message from her was a hand written note left in the care of a newly graduated medical student named Julia Ogden from Toronto, to whom she entrusted their newborn son. He’d been on his way to see them…

…Hamish was a tiny, wrinkled thing when Sherlock found him, but fuelled by the heartbreak and desperation, he cried with all the gusto of a motherless child.

_How can you leave him? Could you not see his perfection? Did you not gaze into his eyes and see that they are yours?_

Seven years, and not word or a hint of Irene’s whereabouts – no signs of life nor messages of death. When he launched himself and Moriarty off the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, part of him had felt as though he were avenging her, even when her death was unconfirmed. During his three-year exile he searched for her, but even Moriarty’s network was clueless of her whereabouts; some believed her dead, others were simply ignorant.

Call it sentiment, vanity, foolishness, call it what you will, but after a while, it was easier to live under the assumption that she’d died than to accept the possibility that she had  _chosen_  never to see him again. If she’d died, it would mean that he had failed, failed to beat Moriarty or whomever meant her harm, failed to save her, failed  _her_. It guts him in ways he can’t put to words every time his mind conjures the image of her deceased body, but even so it is still a thousand times more bearable than the alternative. If she’s alive, then he wouldn’t have failed, he would’ve  _lost._ Not just the game they play, but in every sense of the word. 

It would not matter that he is Sherlock Holmes; he’d just be another man, boring, unimportant, _and ordinary._

 “His Right Honourable Lord Henry Gibbs, 1st Baron of Aldenham, and Miss. Katherine Wolfe.” 

At the doorman’s loud and enthusiastic announcement, all eyes turn towards the couple. Here she is, three quarters of a decade later, perfect and whole, creamy skin glowing under the chandelier. There are rubies and diamonds in her perfectly coiffed hair, black like raven’s wings. The gown she wears is blood red, with a rather daring low-cut bodice trimmed by a subtle bit of delicate lace work and unconventional sleeves. In a sea of cream and pastels, she stands out like the Spanish Inquisition.

Katherine. Wolfe. 

Faced with this new revelation, Sherlock has no choice but to admit that he lost her, that she'd changed her mind. That she had abandoned him, Hamish, and whatever foolish fantasy they had shared that night in Montenegro.

Suddenly, a surge of anger threatens to overwhelm him. He wants to march over there and shake her until she explains herself. He wants to throw up the  _agony_ he carried for the last seven years and force her to swallow it so she can suffer as he suffered. For a second, all he wants to do is hurt The Woman, but a cool touch of Molly’s silk-clad hand against his brings him down from his wrathful state of mind.

“Sweetheart, are you alright?”

Sherlock turns to his wife, who stares up at him worriedly. He can only imagine what his face looks like.

“Fine,” he lies, eyes fixed on Lord Aldenham and Irene as they approach.

“Sherlock, my boy, glad you can make it.” Lord Aldenham’s happiness is spilling over the brim, but Sherlock cannot greet his joy with a congratulatory smile. He doesn’t try anymore to hide his stony visage. 

Irene Adler is standing five feet from him, and she has yet to acknowledge his existence. The anti-climactic nature of their reunion would be laughable had he an ounce of mirth left in him.

“Kate, my dear, allow me to introduce to you Lord Holmes’s younger brother, the famous Detective Sherlock Holmes and his lovely wife, Molly.”

Of course Irene would address Molly first, “Mrs. Holmes, very sweet to meet you. I simply love your necklace, is it a gift from your husband?”  

It is. Molly is wearing the amethyst necklace that belonged to Sherlock’s paternal grandmother. There is no doubt that Irene deduced its origins the second she laid her eyes on it. The Holmes family heirloom in the Holmes family colour worn on another woman’s neck – Sherlock wonders how it makes her feel. He prays to the god he doesn’t believe in that it hurts. Please let it hurt.

Molly blushes and thanks her, “Yes. It is. You are too kind, Miss Wolfe. Your dress, it’s….”

“Different?” Irene smiles, which can be passed off as playful, but Sherlock sees its dangerous edge. She reaches out and touches Molly’s elbow in a friendly gesture, and Sherlock has to bite on his tongue to stop himself from pulling Molly back from Irene. Her touch is poison - sweet, intoxicating poison - that could leave you dead with an ignorant smile still on your face. “Please, call me Kate.”

“Miss Wolf-, Kate, this is my husband.”

Finally, when it cannot be avoided any longer, Irene Adler turns her body and faces Sherlock Holmes.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet the infamous consulting detective; even in America your name proceeds you.”

Sherlock forces himself to stand still against his body’s instinct to reel back from the whiplash of the sound of her voice, familiar and alien all at once. Her American accent, the crisp, articulate pronunciations of an educated woman from Manhattan, is flawless. He can’t find falsehood in it anywhere, nothing to suggest that she wasn’t born and raised in Upper Eastside. Her mouth moves, and Irene’s voice comes out - wrong, wrong, wrong!! - filling the deafening silence in his mind with meaningless pleasantry as if they are strangers. Oh her eyes, those lying blue eyes, how they gaze upon his face and do not flicker with guilt at all.

 _This is a game, as it has always been a game, and even after all this time, I am still losing…_  

She extends her hand towards him – not silk-covered, her gloves are a thin layer of black lace and organza, racy and so very much her. She has talented and able hands that knows exactly how to pluck at his taut and fragile heartstring, either to make him whine with pain or to make him sing in exultation.

 Her shapely wrists, its delicateness concealing deft and power, had once been the mistress to his lips - it had stolen no less kisses from him than her mouth. The slight curve of bone, an artful protrusion at the terminus of her ulna, now poses before him at the most enticing angle. Sherlock sucks in a careful breath, eyes flicking up to meet hers. Behind those icy blues, he sees the sharp, unyielding thorns.

_So you want to play?_

He catches her hand, noting the large diamond engagement ring on her finger,and smiles all too brightly, “Miss Wolfe, enchanté.”

_Let's play._


	4. III

When I first began researching the Ripper case, one of the first people I reached out to was Sally Donovan, and from the start she was a tremendously valuable resource to my endeavors which at the time were at a dreadful standstill. Without her, I could never have finished this piece. I suppose in years’ time, when the classified files lose their secretive seals and the truth comes to light, people won’t remember to mention the low-born, coloured woman employed in Sherlock Holmes’s household. Yet, without her, young James would surely not have lived to celebrate his eighth birthday, and I would then have to regrettably inform you that this story ends in utter tragedy. Thankfully, that is not the case, so while Miss Donovan has no glamorous role to speak of, her contribution to this case in its small but significant ways cannot go unacknowledged.

On the night of Lord Aldenham’s ball, Sally accompanies Sherlock and Molly to Ritchall Place where the Gibbses' permanent residence is situated in the quieter (and cleaner) outskirts of the bustling metropolis. The Butler of the manor had been positively scandalised to find that she was the designated coachman for the detective and his young wife – _‘a_ female _coachman! I’ve never heard such a thing! One would assume all the good and proper young Englishmen are dead’ –_ but Sally had stood her ground, chin tilted in a proud and mutinous fashion, and waited for the Butler to pick his jaw and his manners off the floor. She’s long learned to pay no mind to those who judged her, either for her sex or her cocoa colored skin.

“ _A mulatto, no less. The Holmeses are indeed very strange!”_ she overhears the Housekeeper rant to the Butler.

 _Mulatto –_ derived from the Spanish term ‘mulato’, which in turn finds its root in “mula,” or mule—is a scorching insult she had to bear for last thirty-three years of her life. When she was a girl, mere mentions of the word alone could set her cheeks aflame and her temper flaring in indignation.  If people were generous, they would call her a halfling, but she was rarely so lucky. Nowadays, she is not quite so bothered, not because the sneering remarks have receded, if anything they only grew in viciousness as she aged, but because she knows quite assuredly that she is better than what they say.

Besides, she loved her father and is sad to only wear a diluted version of his chocolate skin.

So with a roll of her eyes and a shrug, Sally shakes the snide comments from her unruffled feathers and endures the night as she had so many others. For a man of seventy, Lord Aldenham holds notoriously long and buoyant parties, and it isn’t until wee hours of morning that she is finally called upon to fetch the carriage.

“And how do I get to the stables from here?”

The Butler throws her a narrow-eyed glare, as if annoyed that she even dares to speak to him, before waving his hand non-descriptively towards the end of the hall, “over there.”

And towards ‘over there’ Sally goes.

Ten minutes later, she is unsurprised to find herself lost in one of the most elaborate gardens in Europe, surrounded by entirely too many plants and not enough horses. In its own right, Ritchall Place fully embodies the affluence of its owner, for the Gibbses are indeed one of the wealthiest families in England. Complementary to the grandeur of the estate is the famous Ritchall Garden, renowned for its elegance and diversity, so deemed a model for any civilised modern city.  

“Ugh,” Sally grunts, throwing her hands up in surrender and plops down moodily on a stone bench (probably inappropriate for a servant, but she could care less). “Stupid Holmes can fetch his own horses.”

If pressed, Sally would have very few kind words to say about her employer. Molly Holmes may be the sweetest lady anyone of Sally’s position could be asked to attend but Sherlock….Sherlock is a species all on his own. To say that he is a piece of work would not do justice to the amount of drivel anyone who’s ever had the ill pleasure and misfortune of working with him has had to suffer. His deficiency is not in his prejudice against her mixed ancestry, for remarkably Sherlock has never categorized the colour of her skin as part of her many, many shortcomings, but in his ego, his vanity, and his complete and utter lack of regard for normal human functioning.

Sally prides herself on having a keen mind and a just heart; if only Scotland Yard offered positions to women. Working for Holmes is the only way she can think of that will permit her to be near a crime scene, not that she is allowed any contributions, but at least it is an opportunity to observe and learn. Once she pointed out the particularities of the victim’s broken heel in an attempt to help. Already solved the murder three minutes prior, Holmes had called her an idiot before sweeping out of the building with his coat bellowing behind him like a giant, narcissistic prat.

 _Don't listen to him. According to him, m_ _ost people are, myself included,_ John had tried to explain, but she’s been sore about it ever since.

Sigh, Sally realises how ridiculous it is of her to sit here sulking like a petulant child. Molly must be tired after a full night of social engagement. Despite her contempt towards Sherlock, Sally has a soft spot in her heart for her lady. Sometimes, it baffles her to think that a woman so blessed in character and temper could possibly agree to be the wife of one of the most intolerable man in London!

Just as she is getting ready to try to navigate her way through this maze like garden, hushed discord between two disembodied voices catches her in mid step. 

The duo is comprised of a man and a woman, standing rather clandestinely behind a pillar of the pavilion. The man has his back facing Sally, his tall frame completely eclipsing her view of his companion. All she can see is the slight bit of bold red fabric of a lengthy gown.

Oh but she recognizes the clothes on that man! She’d iron pressed those trousers herself this very afternoon and polished that pair of ridiculously expensive leather shoes until it shined as much as the beads of sweat clinging to her dampened brows. Though she cannot perceive his countenance, after five years of frustrating acquaintance, it isn't difficult for Sally to imagine Sherlock's haughtiness and condescension. Her stomach twists vexatiously at the memory of those pale, strange eyes and how mechanically it must be processing the poor woman under its cold, violating gaze. 

Yet… Sally hones in on the hand which the detective holds behind his back, and frowns. If the spasms are anything to be judged by, then perhaps he is not as in his elements as she initially believed. 

Sherlock may think himself untouchable, but no fortress is without its cracks. His delusions cannot change the fact that the repeated motion of clench and release is a nervous tick he was not afflicted with before his years away. It is worsened by stress and a lack of distractions, and an episode as bad as this one has not bothered him for quite some times. One does not have to be Sally Donovan, who is shrewd and suspicious by nature, to question the particularities of the situation and the identity of the woman who can trigger such a dramatic relapse.

Lost in her own musings, Sally is unprepared to counter the woman’s sudden movement past the detective and directly into her line of sight. Gasping, she ducks into the shadow beneath a wall of lush green ivy. Both hands clasped over her mouth, she considers retreating immediately, but Sally has always been full of nothing if not tough nerves. Instead, she turns around and carefully parts the thick veil of leafy vines. Between the ribs of the cast-iron trellis, she watches with bated breath and a racing heart as Sherlock reaches out to his fleeing companion. The orange glow of the garden lanterns falls diagonally across his brow bones as he twists around. In that transient interlude before his hands connects with her elbow, during which he is simultaneously released from the scrutiny of an audience (or so he believes) and overridden by his own visceral reflex against her imminent abandonment, Sherlock transforms into someone who Sally cannot conciliate with her mental profile of him.

Transparent. Sally can conjure no other word to describe him. She wonders if this is how he sees everyone else – their thoughts and wants ingrained in the groves of their frown, their secrets and lies written with ink the colour of their irises.  The clash of light and shadow contours every muscle on Sherlock's face, and his expression, though she is unable to decipher, still causes her to tighten her hands over her lips to seal in the gasp pushing at her throat.

She watches as the detective retracts his hand a bit at the last second, as if the part of him that Sally knows as ‘Sherlock Holmes’ attempts to drive out the stranger possessing his body.

"Irene, wait." 

The woman in red stumbles slightly at the sound of her name, and her hesitation seems to revive the energy of not-Sherlock. Unblinkingly, Sally stares as said man, with one swift, determined yank, pulls the woman into his arms.

“What are you doing?”

Sally jolts. The unpleasant blast of surprise wracks through her body. Spinning around, she blurts out, “Nothing!”

Dark brown eyes narrow critically. “Who were you spying on?”

“No one!” Personally, Sally could care less if Sherlock’s actions are exposed, but his disgrace would undoubtedly result in her unemployment, and really she’d rather not be fired.

But the maid is unconvinced. Striding past the trellises, she sets out to unravel Sally’s lie, but there is no one there. The garden is empty save for the two of them.

“See? Like I said, no one. I was just… observing the ivy. I enjoy….botany.” Heart still pounding, Sally hopes her smile is convincing enough. A part of her wants to believe that she’d imagined the whole thing; after all, what she had witnessed was so out of character that it couldn’t possibly be Sherlock.

The dark-haired woman, judging from her age and attires a Lady’s Maid, observes Sally for another minute before sighing. When she speaks, her throaty Irish accent is laced with a friendlier tone, “Well, come along then.”

“To where?”

“You are the Holmeses’ coachman, are you not? The Butler told me he sent you to the stables but I had half a mind to think he didn’t quite do an adequate job of that. I do apologise for him, he really isn’t the friendliest of types. I’m Janine, by the way,” Janine gestures for Sally to follow her. “I’m Lady Aldenham’s Lady’s Maid – well, I will be, once Miss Wolfe marries Lord Aldenham.”

“Sally. I’m… Mrs. Holmes’ Lady’s Maid.”

“Oh!” Janine turns to her, confused. “They told me you were the coachman.”

“I am that too.”

“Huh. Is that right?” Janine smiles, genuinely amused. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“Believe me, I am quite efficient at both my positions,” says Sally curtly.

“Oh I meant no disrespect!” Janine rushes to explain. “I find your employment deviation quite exciting actually. It’s awfully boring being a maid. Let’s hurry, we aren’t too far from the lobby now. I’ve already dispatched a footman to collect your carriage and horses to bring to the front.”

“Have you been working here long?”

“Not long. There hasn’t been a proper lady of the house since the late missus’s passing; I’ve only just been hired,” Janine licks her lips nervously. “I’m still adjusting to be honest.”

Sally follows Janine until they arrive at the front door where the party attenders are bidding their goodbyes to the host. Sally’s heart leaps to her throat when she catches sight of a woman in red, and at once feels stupid that she hadn't managed to connect the dots sooner.

_That’s Katherine Wolfe._

After the Butler and the Housekeeper had ranted enough about Sally's inappropriate profession, they decide to place her under the supervision of the Cook and her flock of kitchen maids, who turn out to be an incredibly gossipy bunch. It seems that while the barons and baronesses, marquises and marchionesses lose themselves in the merriment, they also readily lose the integrity of their carefully-painted masks. As they dance and laugh, drink and drink some more, they leave in the wake of their silk trains and tailcoats equal trails of empty champagne glasses and bits of their flaking discretion.

Words travel fast along the manor’s grapevines. Pieces of gossip are swept up and carried like crumbs and dusts under the maids’ grey skirts and between young footmen’s towel folds. News of Miss Wolfe’s stunning beauty is very quickly (and unanimously) confirmed soon after her debut into the party, and by the end of the night, other qualities of her person have been thoroughly tested, validated and approved. With such agreeable character augmented by her wealth and beauty, she is quickly accepted as ‘one-of-their-own’ by London’s finest families.

Amongst the servants, her choice of attire, that ‘daring shade of red’ quotes kitchen maid number five, is the centre of discussion. According to them ‘no other lady could compare’, and Miss Wolfe’s actions are deemed ‘audacious’ by those who do not approve, and ‘modern’ by others who do.

“Ah Miss Hawkins, I see you’ve found our elusive coachman.”

Katherine Wolfe is indeed a sight to behold, but Sally asks herself if she hadn’t seen what she saw, would she admire this woman too? There is something…unkind... lurking beneath that alabaster skin, something which Sally cannot say for certain she’d be able to detect without foreknowledge.

“Mr. and Mrs. Holmes are already waiting in the carriage. Don’t keep them waiting any longer,” the American woman gestures towards the door before turning away from the maid to shine her smile on another bedazzled guest.

Sally swallows thickly, suddenly struck with the nauseating awareness that she will have to live with what she has witnessed in silence. No one will believe an accusation of such nature about Sherlock Holmes, a man famous for being beyond whimsical follies, or about Katherine Wolfe, who is so loved so quickly and has no reasonable cause to throw herself into an affair with a man she had barely met.

“The entrance is right down these steps, to the left,” Janine elaborates. “Goodnight Miss Donovan.”

“Yes, goodnight,” Sally nods woodenly. It isn’t until she’s made her way through the front door that she is dosed with a second revelation.

_How did Janine know my last name? Well, I suppose…Sherlock or Molly could’ve told her…_

But Sally does not have long to dwell on the matter, because her attention is drawn away by the detective who is having an apparently upsetting conversation with the last person she expected see tonight.

Anthea.

_This is getting ridiculous. What the hell is going on?_

“Ah, there you are, Sally. Molly is tired, take her home and run her a bath. She is dead on her feet already,” Sherlock waves his hand dismissively, barely sparing his coachman a second glance. Which is just as well, since Sally is certain that if he takes one focused look at her, he’d be able to ‘deduce’ everything she'd seen tonight. That would be awkward, because then a conversation is sure to be had about it, and given that she still hasn’t made up her mind on whether or not she should just let that knowledge rot in her bowels (honest to god what the gentry gets up to is seriously none of her business), she would be entirely unprepared for the talk.

“Yes, Mr. Holmes,” Sally pets her lovely horses and steps up to the driver’s bench, pointedly not looking at either Anthea or the detective. Sherlock peeks his head back into the carriage to mutter something to Molly, who conveys despite her sleepiness her disappointment that he will not be coming back with her.

_"I am going to see Mycroft. He sent Anthea to fetch me."_

_"What’s the matter? Is something wrong?"_

_"Who knows? Everything is always of “national importance" with that bastard. I’ll be back in the morning."_

_"Hmmm…our bed is rather empty these days."_

A pause.

_"Yes, I realise. There’ve been more frequent cases lately and…sorry."_

_"It’s all right. I’m not so greedy; the Yard needs you. I can spare a bit of my detective for London."_

Then, Sally hears it. The soft sucking sound of lips coming together for a kiss, and the innocent noise sets her cheeks aflame, as hot and burning as they’d been when she was young girl being ridiculed as a mulatto. Her reaction is not lit by shame or embarrassment, but by the injustice that she cannot tolerate.

Sally realises how utterly stupid she’s been, and cannot believe that she thought herself capable of ignoring Holmes’ blatant lack of propriety and his transgression against Molly.

 _Especially against Molly,_ Sally fumes.

The fact that it is his sweet patient wife who is on the receiving end only further exacerbates the heinousness of his actions. Someone has to make him answer for his mistakes, and if it has to Sally, well so be it.

_Irene, wait._

Her name, her _real_ name is Irene, and if nothing else, it is a place to start digging.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry that took so long, but to make up for my delay, I will be posting the next chapter in the next three days. There's a lot more Irene and Sherlock (and Mycroft yeh!) in the next chapter. Thanks for reading!


	5. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thank yous goes to Francesca-Wayland for beta and britpick! She is awesome! Because oh god, my grammar is atrocious (apologies for anyone who had to suffer through the unbeta-ed version).

The ride back to inner London is silent and dreary. Everything along the bumpy country road is caught in an ephemeral haze, the awkward in-between before dawn when the night has gone but day is yet to come. Contrary to the poetic, sunlight does not chase away the darkness. It exits quietly, leaking into the world beyond the western horizon, like dark ink washed out across an oriental painting. In its wake, there is only a tasteless grey, enshrouding everyone and everything, a purgatory that is neither here nor there.

Most people are still warm in their beds at this hour, and they’ll sleep right through this dull and suffocating interlude until the sun peaks over the eastern edge and floods the sky with a palate of golden orange, royal violet and cobalt blue.

It is the vacantness of the pre-day that Sherlock finds most disconcerting, for even though he knows that day will come when the earth has made its full rotation, a part of him – a very small, but very human part– worries that it never will. That after the long, perilous night during which he must endure being crippled of his most valued sense – his keen, calculating eyes - there is no reward, no light to be shed upon what he wishes to see, rendering all the waiting and gruesome _patience_ wasted.

Sherlock admits, for there is no point in feigning indifference to himself, that a night spent in the company of the ever-dazzling Irene Adler is perhaps ten times worse. In her presence it is not only his eyes that can be blinded.

 _Volatile and traitorous organ_! He berates, though not entirely sure if he should condemn his brain or his heart.  

A slight breeze passes through the open window and between his fingers, rousing the slight scents of her perfume still lingering on the palm of his hand.  He could almost feel her hand in his, and the heat of her body radiating into him.

Orris root, rose water, and vanilla. Just like Sherlock remembered, though he is unable to identify the specificity of the brand. He can, if he wants to, scour through his mind palace for the umpteenth time hunting the origin of her scent, but he knows from countless futile attempts that he will always end up in one specific place.

A sunroom, with cherry wood floors, tall frosted windows, and a wrought iron bed, trapped in perpetuate late-autumn rain. Three windows on the right are open. Creamy tulle curtains dance languidly against the gentle zephyr.   

Her fragrance is most potent here, so infused into every surface it is nearly overwhelming. Sherlock runs his hand against the rumpled sheets and imagines her shivering beneath his touch, a layer of goose pimples trailing his fingers as they ghost along her silken ivory skin. The rain, as he remembers, is cold, but her soft naked body is warm, and the air hangs saturated with the essence of her and salty hints of the Adriatic Sea.

Unlike other parts of his mind palace, the sunroom is not a voluntary creation. One morning he awoke with her tucked against his side and it was simply there, an awkward appendage jutting from his otherwise perfectly geometrical fortress. He’d tried to move it somewhere else - to delete it - but he couldn’t, and in the months after they’d parted, he frequently allowed himself to visit this particular parlour against his better judgment. Sometimes, she’s there to greet him, most times she isn’t. Even as a figment of his mind, Irene Adler is a woman of her own, coming and going as she pleases, unpredictable, unfathomable, and untameable. An audience with her in his mind is as much a privilege as it is in the flesh.  

When her telegraphs arrived detailing her pregnancy, a cradle had appeared by the foot of the bed - maple wood, clean, shiny black varnish, and padded with white cotton blankets. Sherlock had hated it; hated the change, the unexpected intrusion, but it wasn’t long before he began to enjoy its presence and what it promised. He never tried to remove the cradle, not even initially, perhaps because he knew there was no changing what was already done.

After James was born and Irene disappeared, Sherlock never set foot in the sunroom again. He is here, for the first time in years, expecting cobwebs and flooded floors, but the room exists as it always has; quiet, breezy with drizzling rain.

To be honest, Sherlock isn’t sure what this means, or how exactly to deal with it.

Suddenly, a pair of pale slim arms snake around him from behind. A hushed, sultry voice whispers, _“Oh Mr. Holmes.”_

She isn’t quite tall enough to breath into his ears. Sherlock can feel her breasts press into his back as she perches onto her tiptoes. Drawing in a haphazard breath, he reaches for the hand she has circled around his torso.

_“Did you miss me?”_

_“I- I…”_

“Have you learned anything?”

Anthea’s bored voice breaks his daydream like a pebble into a smooth shallow pond. Sherlock glances at her and raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.

Part of him was concerned about how his brother would react to Irene’s return, but Anthea’s unexpected intrusion at Ritchall Place revealed to him that Mycroft had known all along. There was no other important business to attend to; his decision to send Sherlock in his stead was a deliberate and calculated one.

 _And cruel,_ his miffed inner voice complains.

A small warning would’ve been greatly appreciated. At the least, it would’ve prepared him enough not to gawk at her in public. Hardly anyone noticed, thankfully, as he was able to compose himself in time to interact with Irene up close, but his preliminary reaction had been so pitifully unchecked that Molly had become somewhat startled (although his wife does have a knack for seeing a side of him that no one else sees, but that’s beside the point).

“Pardon?”

“Have you learned anything about Irene Adler?”

The man glares at his brother’s assistant. “Mycroft knows about Irene Adler, that’s why he ordered me to that tedious ball. If he needed me on the case, that was the most unnecessary and roundabout way of doing it. And now after subjecting me to a night of mindless frivolity, he must be expecting a “report” on what I’ve managed to gain from The Woman.”

“And what are you planning to report?”

The silence is filled with Sherlock’s embarrassing realisation that he has not learned a single useful fact.

“Nothing of import - yet,” he admits curtly, but through Anthea’s questions he is able to conclude that whatever Irene’s play is, Mycroft hasn’t the faintest idea either. Otherwise he would’ve attended tonight’s event himself, taking the chance to deduce and systematically disassemble Irene and her intentions. Mycroft would’ve been thorough and unmoved by the distractive effects of sentiment, thus more productive than what Sherlock can hope to manage. Despite it hurts him physically to admit that his brother is his intellectual superior, within the safety of his own mind, his ego yields to reality.

Mycroft, who is unlike him in temperament and manners, never strides into battle unprepared.

_Balance of probability. Any slight misstep can skew the equation, little brother._

While Sherlock thrives on the rush of danger (and isn’t it how he’s always treated his relationship with The Woman?), Mycroft rejects it entirely; he’d much prefer to have the odds in his favour. The thrill of chase, the blood pumping through his vein - to the younger Holmes it is the sweetest invitation, promising adventures and games, but the older would see it only as the much-abhorred prospect of legwork.

Mycroft hates legwork. That lazy arse.

Logically, Sherlock knows his brother is right to avoid this ball, because that would be exactly what Irene Adler wanted. The ball was meant to be a coagulation of the most powerful people beneath the crown, and judging by the proceedings, she had absolutely no trouble getting them to dance in the palm of her hand like witless monkeys. As of now, there is no way to tell whether her agenda is targeting anyone specific within this group or ‘The British Government’ himself, but agenda or no agenda, Mycroft has climbed too high these past years to risk falling into her traps now. By sending Sherlock, he is able to simultaneously sample his target whilst protecting his own hand and whatever stately secrets Irene is after this time.

In light of tonight, Sherlock cannot avoid reassessing his own credibility as The Woman’s prosecutor and interrogator. His actions earlier hardly exemplify impartial conducts, but Irene has a way of…

She has a way.

Sherlock leans back against the cushioned seat and draws in a deep breath. With The Woman, it’s always a guessing game. Sherlock is still unsure the approach to take that would prove most efficient. She is fastidious by nature and maddeningly unreadable to him.

Regarding Irene, sentiment is his pressure point, but in the same way, it is also hers (or at least he hopes). He had tried playing that card tonight, but was unsuccessful in his endeavour to wheedle any useful information from her. It is not that she’d been unresponsive to his advances – only for the sake of the game and no more – but rather…

Sherlock frowns, annoyed. She is still completely distracting, and it is too easy for him to fall into old habits around her.

He has to remind himself, not for the last time, that this was all just part of the game. Diligence is paramount.  He shouldn’t and mustn’t believe a single word out of the Woman’s mouth.

“We shouldn’t be long now,” Anthea glances out the window. “Mycroft insisted you be brought to him right away, but since you’ve nothing to report…that’s rather disappointing.”

“Well it’s good that I’m not you, isn’t it? Maybe Mycroft is getting somewhat senile, but last time I checked, _I’m_ not his assistant. I don’t work for the Crown, and I certainly don’t work for him. If he can’t be arsed enough to attend that ridiculous ball -”

“This was Mycroft being kind and the Adler woman’s last chance to come clean.” Anthea shakes her head, and levels Sherlock an exaggerated look, as if she can’t understand  why this isn’t obvious to him.

Scowling, Sherlock wants to rebut that while he has more interesting things to do daily than go over the tedious intricacies of his brother’s character, he’s known many ‘kind’ folks in his experience who would argue against the liberal use of the word in regard to his brother’s actions, but he is too preoccupied  by the implication of the second half of Anthea’s sentence.

‘And what are Mycroft’s plans regarding The Woman?”  

Anthea turns her face towards the window again and does not respond. An unpleasant jolt of…something (because it can’t be worry) courses through the detective, making his left hand tremble inside his coat pocket. Anthea doesn’t catch on, thankfully.

As quickly as that, Sherlock’s focus is shifted from trying to figure out Irene’s motives to the irrational need to protect her from England’s (and his brother’s) legal system. The things she’s done… it would not be farfetched to assume the prosecution would want her hanged.

Before Sherlock can dissect deeper into why he _wants_ to help her, he is confronted with another predicament: how can he even begin to save her from her fate when he hasn’t the foggiest idea why she has returned under her own volition? She must know that London is not safe for her, and yet she is here, under a very thorough and substantiated alias and the protection of one of the richest, most powerful families in England.

If he didn’t know her as he does, Sherlock would be inclined to believe that this is all a hoax to marry rich, but Irene Adler always had grander schemes than just money.

The carriage stops in front of the Diogenes Club, and Anthea leads him through the darkened corridors, confident of her directions. During the day, she would not be allowed to wander around this place freely with its assembly of severe male tenants, which leads Sherlock to deduce that she’d spent considerable time here at night, and most definitely in the company of his pompous brother.    

If the situation were not so vexing he would spew more than a couple of snide remarks about this detail. As of the moment, his focus is entirely on The Woman, the myriad of motives that had prompted her return, and the plethora of subsequent outcomes now that she is here. Above all, he agonises over how they will affect the seven year old boy who has no idea of her existence.

James is, despite how much Molly dotes on him, Irene’s son, and one day the precocious little boy will be grown and ready to demand answers. Current trajectory of his intellectual growth predicts that in due time, James will discover that the woman who he calls Mummy shares not a drop of blood with him. It may not change how he adores her, but it won’t stop him, who is curious and stubborn since he could crawl, from seeking out the other half of his lineage.

It is one matter if Irene is still alive by then, but if she’s dead, especially at the hands of Mycroft, Sherlock shudders to think the violent and catastrophic nature of James’s reaction. He will no doubt understand the pragmatic logic behind why his mother had to stopped, but there is no telling how profoundly the resentment of being lied to and robbed of what he is owed – the truth of his other half – will affect him. The uncle who killed his mother, the woman who replaced her, and the father who did nothing to stop all of this from happening…

They would lose James, quite possibly forever.

Sherlock loves his son, unquestioningly and without regret, and had ever since the moment that the Canadian pathologist had laid his tiny swaddled body into his arms. To lose his son over the execution of his mother, the prospect of which on its own is fraught with peril and dread, is an unacceptable path. Sherlock understands the limits and strength of his emotional tolerance enough to know that should both events ever come to fruition (because one would inevitably lead to the other)….

_No._

It becomes clear to him that it is of utmost importance that he speaks with Irene again in private. Whatever her agenda, this is personal and far more detrimental in the long run. But first, he must deal with his brother.

Anthea knocks thrice on the door of Mycroft’s personal study in the Diogenes to signal their arrival, but Sherlock doesn’t wait for a response before he pushes through the barrier.  

“Mycroft –”

The words die on his tongue and the line of arguments he’d been prepared to unleash onto this brother in defence of The Woman disintegrates instantly into minute fragments, blown apart like puffs of a dandelion by the air rushing out of his lungs.

An overwhelming sense of déjà vu renders Sherlock frozen to the spot, the experience so pervasive that he feels disembodied from his physical form, thrust back eight years into the past to the night Irene Adler brought the nation to its knees.  

He barely registers the faint _oof_ Anthea lets out as she collides into his back, because all he can focus on is the figure donned in obsidian and ivory, gleaming eyes, and blood-red smirk, lounging comfortably in the chair across the table from his brother.

“Hello Sherlock.”

 

~~~

 

The most ridiculous part about this situation is that Mycroft is in his dressing gown. Granted he is still wearing his pristine white shirt (though less pristine now after a day's work) and formal trousers, but he’s shed the waistcoat, the tie and his suit jacket. A glass of half-finished scotch sits by his hand, now completely forgotten, and he stares at the woman with what appears to be cool indifference, but Sherlock reads his discomfort from the ever-so-slightly pinched muscles around his lips.

Both the brothers dress impeccably, the older even more rigid in his apparel than the younger, who often likes to lounge casually in his home-wear when he’s off a case. To have Irene, so composed and protected beneath her carefully chosen and meticulously tailored armour, sit across from Mycroft not in his best attire must be akin to the proverbial phrase ‘catching him with his pants down’.

From this alone, Sherlock knows his brother had not expected this unwelcomed guest.He took in the sight of The Woman – the name by which she is known to those who roam in the murky underground of this world, and not specifically the title she holds in his ~~heart~~ mind – engaged in a standoff of the will with his older brother. Gone was the daring crimson gown and lavish coiffure and in their place is her signature day wear, a dark flowing skirt made of the finest damask topped with a smartly cut suit accentuating curves which Sherlock knows first-hand are not purely the product of her corset.  One could tell from the meticulous tailoring and the more masculine design that she'd chosen her armour with care, deliberately bringing out her sculptured jawline and prominent cheekbones. Nevertheless, Irene Adler is a stylish woman, and the effect of her outer attire is softened ever so slightly by the bit of ivory and black lace trimming the end of her slim (purposely anti-fashion) sleeves and between the two folds of her lapels, extending over her collarbones and gathering into a tight, stiff collar.  

This is how he remembers her, red lips, steel eyes, and in control - this is the Irene Adler he knows. The one who can be kneeling in front of his armchair caressing his wrist, their faces inches apart, whispering  _would_   _you_ _have dinner with me_ in one breath, and in the same breath dismiss him with a condescending _not you, Junior, you're done now_. Just when he thinks he has finally grasped the intricacies of her nature, she reveals her other hand, and everything he thinks he knows becomes uncertain. The Woman is a star with changing gravity, and Sherlock realises (as he should by now) that he will never be in the correct orbit around her. 

A desperate thought surfaces to the forefront of his mind that he tries to shove down but to no avail. In face of this new development, Sherlock is left wondering if their interactions earlier tonight had been solely an act on her part, because as much as his own actions had intended to manipulate her, there were pieces of real sentiment that couldn't help but bleed into his speech, touch, and expression. If he were lucky, his blunders would not be obvious to her, and as much as he derides relying on luck in his craft, it would seem he has very little choice in the matter. Despite her guarded but positive response, Sherlock has no way to discern whether the subtle reciprocations were genuine, and with each passing second, loses faith in the possibility.  As fact would have it, she is sitting in his brother's office once again like she’d done so many years ago, with an agenda that will most definitely deliver a quaking pulse through the governmental framework. 

“I was looking forward to see you tonight, Lord Holmes, but I suspected that you were avoiding me. When Anthea showed up at Ritchall Place to fetch Sherlock, I knew you were,” Irene sighs, glancing towards the younger woman standing rigidly by the doorway.

She eyes the hand Anthea places behind her waist, where a revolver is hidden beneath the hem of her suit top.

“I really hope you’re not planning my incarceration already. That would be terribly boring and rude of you, considering I come bearing good will and assistance.”

Sherlock whips around from where he stands in front of the fireplace.

“Your good will is questionable and your assistance is unrequired.”

“Oh? So you say, but I wonder what your brother will decide when I remind him that as of three weeks ago, the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea is the home of a cargo ship full of British military supplies heading towards Sudan, summing a total worth of five hundred thousand pounds. I want to say that won’t blow much of a hole in the wealth of a nation, but then…well, I’d be repeating myself.”

Irene leans back into her chair and plods on, eyes gleaming with victory already. “Thank god for Kitchener and his tactful mobilisation,” she smirks, shrugging as if the subject is cavalier. “What a shame it’d be if two Jameson Raids happened within the span of six months.”

Mycroft whips upwards, eyebrows shooting high up into his receding hairline. Across the room, his assistant sucks in a quiet breath. Sherlock glances between the two, hating the fact that he is the only one left in the dark. He can imagine the gears turning in Mycroft’s somewhat big but still intelligent head. As his brother blinks, Sherlock notes with a slight jolt of surprise (and dread?) that whatever The Woman plots to accomplish, she has easily captured the interest of Mr. British Government himself.  

Silently, Mycroft gestures a sign of dismissal at his assistant, whom instead of following her orders, bristles, instantly and quite conspicuously. The pinched frown settling onto her young, beautiful face is directed boldly towards her employer, and Sherlock gets the impression that it’s testing all her constraints not to pout.

 _Not for petulant reasons,_ the detective determines, because Anthea strides towards the table and places the gun loudly beside Mycroft’s glass of scotch.

The warning glare she shoots towards the older woman is full of dark connotations, but the voice in which she speaks is cool and calm.

“I’ll be outside.”

Whipping around, Anthea spares one last look at Sherlock, one filled with disappointment as if he had betrayed her trust somehow, and exits the room.

The echo of the door slamming shut fills the silence.

“Ooh, I can see why you like her,” Irene’s playful smirk lacks none of the confidence exuded when she first thought she’d stepped upon the throat of the British Government.  

Narrow-eyed, Mycroft ignores her jab, “How do you know about those military supplies?”

Irene tilts her head contemplatively at Mycroft’s question, as if the answer should be obvious.

“The same way I know Hamad bin Thuwaini was not poisoned by his cousin, or…I should say, not _entirely_ poisoned by his cousin.”

“Why are you back in London, Miss Adler? Surely you understand the conditions under which you fled this country demand your immediate arrest should you step another foot on the Queen’s soil.”

“ _I’m_ here to get married –“

– _Married, married, married –_ Her word strikes an imaginary chord along his spine, and its echoes vibrate through his veins and bounce against the inside of his skull. Sherlock nearly reels from its dizzying effect.  

“– As much as I love my freedom, I am a woman, and until such times when we can stand as equals to men –as we should– I shall carry on playing the game if I want to continue living with my comforts.”

Irene draws from her silken cream purse a small rectangular name card and slides it across Mycroft’s mahogany table.

“I understand entirely why you may be disinclined to believe me, but I promise that I want not a single penny from the Crown. It is not what _you_ can give me, Lord Holmes, but what _I_ can offer you.”

The scene that plays out before him is all too raw and familiar, so much so that Sherlock can hear her voice in his mind.

_Jim Moriarty sends his love._

“Mr. Norton extends his deepest condolences to the losses of the Empire and offers his service.”

The criminal name snaps Sherlock to attention. “Godfrey Norton? The British expatriate operating in America who appears as an oil tycoon on paper but is actually the godfather of illegal dealings and arm’s trade, a felon –”

“ _A_ _business man,”_ Irene interjects, shooting Sherlock a pointed look. “And great friend with many bodies in the British parliament and elite classes. One must not judge what one does not know, Mr. Holmes.”

Now it is Mycroft’s turn to be under the gaze of judgment. Sherlock’s lips curl, “The British Government does business with the likes of _him?_ ”

“And how does Mr. Norton propose to assist?”

“Godfrey’s connections are extensive, and his commerce diverse. The vessel that contained British munitions was contracted partially from him. Godfrey... is a proud man and takes the sinking as an attack against his person. As for the late Hamad, he was a very easy-talking ruler of a well-endowed piece of land. Naturally, he and Mr. Norton were firm friends; the news of his murder is a public tragedy and a personal loss.”

“What I hope you mean to say is that Godfrey and Hamad’s _gold_ were firm friends.” ~~~~

“And diamonds,” adds Irene immediately, completely unmoved by Mycroft’s attempt to demean Norton. “Zanzibar is – as I have said – a _well-endowed_ land, much like most of East Africa…unless you want to tell me that the reason European colonists are skirmishing across the continent is because they appreciate the local culture.”

Waving her hand facetiously, Irene steers the conversation back to her main objective.

“But enough about that. The point is that these kinds of incidences are becoming more and more expensive and less and less a matter of simple inconvenience – and Norton is not the only victim of such attacks. His men report that his competitors in the East, in the South and in Europe all suffer the same damage. I’ll admit, Godfrey dispatched those knowledgeable to investigate, but so far they haven’t yielded the desired results.”

At that, Irene pauses, taking a moment to measure the other party’s reaction and appears pleased to find Mycroft listening intently to her account. Sherlock gnaws his bottom in irritation, recognising that she has obtained the upper hand at this juncture. Though his brother’s famous stony countenance betrays not a jot of his thoughts to her (or to anyone), Irene is not worried by her inability to obtain a good read. Mycroft’s lack of response is all the response she needs. It is an indication of vigilance, of his being wilfully guarded against her tactics, and if nothing else, it alerts to her that she has his absolute attention. That absence of boredom in those Holmes-patented blue eyes, a hazy gleam with which she must be all too familiar both in herself and in Sherlock, is a very assuring security. Offering a grim smile, Irene continues, “However, last month, a confidant of the late Sultan Hamad paid Godfrey a visit, and he brought with him this particular piece.”  

From her purse, Irene produces something small wrapped carefully in a silk handkerchief.

“It was found inside Hamad’s mouth. I’ll let you decide the implication for yourself.”

Mycroft lays the object in his palm and unfolds the cloth corner by corner. The smoothness of the silk hides the texture of the object, but from its size, shape and flexibility, he could tell that it is a paper card of some sort. Indeed he is right. As the last bit of fabric falls away, what he sees confirms the foreboding question that’s been tossing in his mind for the better part of the year. It is a rumour he doesn’t want to acknowledge, but the evidence in his palm gives substance to all the worried talks amongst his colleagues and subordinates. A single playing card lies on top of the silk, wrinkled and dampened around the edges by a dead man’s saliva.

It is a Jack, painted in black ink and blood, holding not a staff nor a sword, but a long, thin sickle.

Sherlock takes two steps forward until he can see what has his brother tense up so visibly. Ah, the famous Ripper, a serial murderer that has people shuddering at the thought and the Yarders pulling their hair out in frustration. Sherlock whips through his mind palace, the torrent of case history arranged in chronological order flying past his side until he pauses in the section marked Aug – Nov, 1888. He opens his eyes, and is taken aback by the blank, grimy shelves in this particular division. He spins around, thinking surely, _surely,_ he must have something stowed away for the Ripper – why doesn’t he?

_Oh._

Reaching out his hand, Sherlock wipes away the blanket of feather-like dust covering the shelf to his left. The word _CLASSIFIED_ is etched into the wood. He vaguely recalls having a conversation with Lestrade and the older man saying, “ _Hell if I know, Sherlock. Ask your brother. He’s the one that took this case off our hands.”_ Twisting to the shelf on the opposite side, he repeats this motion, revealing another word that makes his heart plunge.

_MONTENEGRO._

_Of course._

He had never been in the country at the time. When the denizens of London were being terrorized by the deranged psychopath, he had been camping in the Indian desert, sweating beneath his dark shrouds and sleeping under the starlight of Corona Borealis with a machete tucked close to his body. When the letter of The Ripper had arrived at Scotland Yard, sending the press and the public into a panicked frenzy, he had been lying naked between cotton sheets with the woman he had stolen from Death’s grasp.

After he had returned to London in the aftermath of The Ripper’s pillage, he had been only slightly disappointed at missing out on such an interesting case, for the vigorous (and pleasurable) stimulation he received at the hands of The Woman could almost be considered unlawful.

Tearing himself from the tempting memories, Sherlock directs his focus once more at the two other occupants in the room.

Irene Adler is staring at Mycroft, her gaze a blended mixture of confusion and expectancy, as if she’s not only waiting for him to confirm what she already knows but to elaborate further. His brother observes the woman hesitantly, gauging the validity of her emotions. As Irene once said, she knows how to play the Holmes boys, and all too well for Mycroft’s liking.

“During the last quarter of 1888, I was…” Her eyes slide to Sherlock briefly, “rather indisposed, but words spread and I read the papers afterwards. Jack the Ripper was a serial murderer. His victims were prostitutes. I understand he – or they - was never caught, but even so, from prostitutes to the sovereign of an African nation – that’s a tremendous leap, one Godfrey is unwilling to believe without reasonable explanation.”  

“I am correct to assume Mr. Norton would like to dispose of The Ripper?” Mycroft’s seasoned political veneer is impermeable as ever, but Sherlock, being his brother, can tell that his nerves are beginning to fray around the edges. Two surprises in one night, Mycroft hasn’t been this unprepared or unlucky in a very long time.  

“Or whoever is disturbing his businesses. Godfrey has offered his co-operation and any insight he might have on these attacks. He believes, and I concur, that the desire is shared by the British government which I would assume now even more so, seeing that ‘The Ripper’s’ ambition has grown disproportionally,” Irene nods, but a frown is beginning to etch onto her face, as if she is trying to fit together the pieces of an incredibly complicated puzzle whose edges are jagged and refuse to align. “Of course, I still don’t understand how that’s even possible or remotely related to the murders in ’88, unless… I am not operating with all the variables?”

But instead of answering her questions, Mycroft rewraps the jack in its silk covering and slides it back across the table.

“It would seem that you are not the only one not operating with all the variables. Godfrey has incentive to see whomever behind this –Ripper or otherwise –removed from the picture, but it does raise the question why has he send you, Miss. Adler, as negotiator? You cannot expect us to believe this is purely out of the goodness of your heart.”

“I already told you, I am getting married, but not as Irene Adler. Katherine Wolfe is an American heiress with oil money; a man of your intellect should be able to figure out who my benefactor is. Of course, the existence of my frankly enormous dowry in conjunction with the cogency of my alias – are conditional upon my success in London, specifically, to come to agreeable terms with the British Intelligence community on his behalf.”

“And what makes you think I won’t reveal you myself? Lord Aldenham is an old friend.”

“You won’t, because the Gibbses are respected and powerful, precisely the type of family that can’t afford a scandal of this magnitude. How could you do such a thing to _an old friend_?”

Irene widens her eyes, daring him to dispute her argument. The way she stares down Mycroft is reminiscent of the night they had had a conversation in these exact chairs a decade past, when she had levelled his counterpoint with a self-assured and effective response _Fine! Good idea, unless there are lives of British citizens depending on the information you’re about to burn._

Irene Adler and her Pandora’s Box that brought the nation to its knees.  

She had done it once, she can do it again.

Smoothing out the non-existent creases in her black damask skirt, Irene stands to go. “It is getting late. I am tired, and I suppose you are as well, Lord Holmes. I have taken up residence in my old flat in Belgravia. When you’ve made your decision, you know where to find me.”

The sound of her chair scrapping back causes Sherlock to suddenly realise he had had no part in the conversation that had just transpired. He is essentially as irrelevant to this engagement as Anthea…or that unfinished cup of scotch. His presence neither augments nor deters its proceedings.

“I do apologise for intruding on your meeting with your brother, Sherlock,” Irene says as she brushes past him. “I would’ve spoken with Mycroft sooner but… by Godfrey’s instruction I simply could not wait. I’m sure you brothers have a lot to discuss, and I shan’t be a bother any longer. Good morning, gentlemen.”

Just like that, she is gone, the light scent of her perfume the only trace evidence that she was ever here. The hollow echo of her heels carrying her away match the startling sensation in his chest. Sherlock stands there, brows furrowed and back facing the dry heat of the fireplace until he can feel his sweat dampening the inside of his shirt. Even so, his hands and feet tingle with coldness. The gears in his mind turn and turn, but it’s as if a layer of rust has settled on the engine, and he cannot for the life of him process what’d just happened and how Irene could, with a couple lines of smartly placed pleasantry, dismiss him without a bat of an eye.

Numbly, Sherlock turns to his brother and attempts to steer himself away from any aching thoughts of The Woman and towards the more productive topics of The Ripper and whether Mycroft will agree to cooperate with Norton. Yet, upon finding him bent over the jack with his forehead resting in one hand, it occurs to Sherlock that he’d been a fool, that they’d both been fools. Judging from Mycroft’s pinched expression, this awareness has already dawned on him, thus making Sherlock the slowest one once again.

From the beginning, Irene had never needed Mycroft to agree to anything. Working under the assumption that everything she says about Norton is true (and based on what Sherlock knows of Norton’s reputation that is very likely), then Irene has accomplished everything she had wanted. She had never needed Mycroft to agree to any kind of cooperation. Godfrey wants whoever is damaging his businesses gone; his loss is purely financial, but to the British government, it is lives of its citizens and the prosperity of the empire at stake. Partnership or not, Mycroft will investigate and eventually put a stop to this, consequently fulfilling Godfrey’s ends and ensuring Irene receives her dues. All she has to do is to make Mycroft believe her words on The Ripper, and seeing him so affected by that playing card, there is no doubt in Sherlock’s mind that his brother does.

Mycroft sighs and says tiredly without lifting his head, “Go home to your wife, Sherlock.”

 _And forget about that awful woman_ is left unspoken, but Sherlock hears the weariness in the silence. Mycroft opts to reveal nothing, not of the mysterious Jack the Ripper who is obviously more than just a psychopathic serial killer or the illustrious Irene Adler, which subjects the detective to leaving this bizarre encounter empty-handed.

For the first time since Moriarty’s death, Sherlock finds himself a truly enticing case, and immediately the exhilaration of the Work rushes forth from where it had taken a momentary backseat behind all the sentiment conjured by Irene’s sudden return. Indeed he may have not been in London during the successive Whitechapel Murders, but he knows one seasoned policeman who was.

Lestrade had refused to discuss the case back then, insisting it was classified and out of his jurisdiction, but in light of new developments, perhaps he can be persuaded to reopen the case. With his mind already racing ahead of him, Sherlock chases after his own ambitions out of Diogenes Club.

Mycroft watches his sibling’s retreating shadow and sighs, comforted by the knowledge that at least for now, Sherlock is able to find something to distract himself from the precarious relationship between him and the Adler woman.  

The truth, one not so obvious and perhaps rather alarming, is that Sherlock Holmes is at his core a romantic. Stubbornly so. _Hopelessly_ so. Not many could make such a deduction about his heart – Mycroft maybe, John to a certain degree. Usually the elder Holmes dances carefully around the prospect which he finds entirely too frightening, and John perceives Sherlock’s eccentricities as some form of transcendence above the secular world. In many ways, John could lay out the contorted layers of Sherlock’s mind on the table like slices of anatomical dissections and read him effortlessly. He knows without a doubt that Sherlock is a good man, a kind man, a man who has despite his flippant and inconsiderate attitudes a heart. It is this understanding quality in John that prompts Mycroft to support his brother’s friendship with the soldier.

But what is inside that fortressed heart, no one can speak with confidence, not John or Mycroft, though perhaps after tonight and witnessing the utterly lost look on Sherlock’s face, the latter can hazard a guess or two about someone who perhaps could…

…A woman with raven hair, blue eyes like steel, and lips painted red.   

_Dear God, why her?_

Anthea returns shortly after Sherlock’s departured, and now that they are alone, she seems a bit sheepish about her earlier behaviour. Apologetically, she sets a cup of a steaming Earl Grey in front of him and swipes away the revolver as clandestinely as she can muster. When her eyes land on the bloody jack, she freezes.

“Sir-”

“When the sun comes up, I’m going to need you to find Doctor Watson for me. And Austen,” Mycroft looks up at his assistant’s gaping face. “Keep an eye on my brother for me, would you?”

It only takes a second for Anthea to school her feature back into her vacant mask, “Of course sir.”

 

~~~

 

The back window of her flat is easily picked. Heavy boots land surprisingly lightly against hardwood flooring.

There are exactly forty-nine steps between first floor and second floor, the fifteenth and thirty-second of which are creaky, so he oversteps those and does the same to the loose floorboard on the landing between the two columns of stairs.

He finds Irene Adler in her bedroom, sitting in the semi-dark, dark hair loose around her shoulders, stripped down to her corset and petticoat. Through the gap between in the doorway, he sees her elbows are propped on the surface of her vanity table, supporting the head bowed against the heel of her palm as if in prayer.

Within her tightly clutched hand is the wooden cross of a God he knows she doesn’t believe, and he watches the shiny rosary beads sway hypnotically in the mirror, wondering what is the whole point of this.  

Irene Adler is the last person to be dubbed religious.

“Do come in. I’ve been expecting you.”

She glances up and catches his eyes through his reflection. She is undeniably tired, but the fire within her burns still.  

“How was trip back to the city? No trouble I hope.”

“No troubles for a dead man,” he shrugs, tossing his bag onto the ground before plopping into an armchair still covered by white cloth. “So?”

“So what?”

“How did it go with Holmes?” He’s been on a train for hours and is in no mood for her games.

“How do you think, Sebastien? Would I still be sitting here if it went badly?”

Pulling her hair to one side, she begins to brush it, but her thoughts seem very far away. Seb is not so dull that he can’t recognise an evasive technique when he sees it, especially one so half-heartedly conducted. It’s not often that he can guess what goes on inside that woman’s head, but like the detective she is so fond of – he thinks with a sneer – her _sentiment_ is not nearly as well guarded as she hopes.

“He’s married you know,” Seb can’t help but mock, wicked grin growing when her brushing halts abruptly. “That poor wife of his – Christ woman, how many men do you have to own – you don’t even fancy men! Aldenham is a tad old but you’ve still got Norton. The bloke is decent looking. What is it you always said about sentiment -”

Shooting him a dirty glare, Irene responds instead, “I met with your sister.”

The grin falls from his face. Moran scowls, “She got out. It’s what she wanted, but you’re going to drag her back into this. She’s not a Moran anymore.”

“She’s never been a Moran, and she’s never _been_ out. Once you’ve dealt with Moriarty, you don’t get out. Ever. Haven’t you learned anything – oh wait–” Now it’s Irene’s turn to smirk. “You’re in this willingly. Who’s the sentimental one now? You loved him so much, and he left you all alone in this world.”

She tsks.

“He was _taken_ from me!” Seb barks.

“Oh… there, there” coos Irene sardonically, reaching out a hand to ‘comfort’ him.

Her nails scrape against his scalp, making the hair on the back of his neck stand at attention, a sensation familiar and revolting all at once, for in her touch he detects a degree of uncanny resemblance to Jim.

 _My good tiger,_ Jim used to purr, running his digits through Seb’s hair like one would to an obedient dog. Jim had large hands for a man of his height – almost a foot shorter than Seb, but he hardly noticed. Jim Moriarty had a presence that made people forget that he was breakable, and hands that Sebastien believed – _believes –_ can hold the world in their grip.

The Adler woman has such hands too, and it is their all-consuming relentlessness that reminds him of the consulting criminal and of the reason he is sitting here. Against his will, Seb shudders, and another piece of sediment falls onto of his ever-growing pile of self-hate. _No one_ gets to touch him like that except Jim. Seb grits his teeth and considers – for neither the first nor last time – running her through with the dagger he keeps strapped to the inside of his boot.

Irene rounds the vanity, coming to his left. She strokes his face, from temple to chin, the way a skilful swordsman would appreciate a keen blade. Her wrinkled palm*, de-gloved and bare, slides against his unshaven jaw like sand paper. Neither is disturbed by the friction of their contact, though it is hardly a pleasurable one.

Those ruby lips suck a soft patronising tsk at him, her head tilting in dramatic condescension.

“Look how much you miss him. It’s sad.”

His growl is vicious, much befitting his little nickname. A swift manoeuvre and a click, and his pistol is freed from its holster and pressed into Irene’s breast bone.

She grins at him, undaunted and amused. “Kill me, and you will never be able to fulfil your promise.”

Seb gives no response, because she’s right. Frustration tightens the tracks of his throat, forcing his breath out from his nostrils in harsh, hot puffs.  

Golden morning light steals through the gap between heavy curtains, scattering around her pale shoulders. Miniscule dust particles in the air, lit aglow by the sun, adhere to the fringes of her hair and form a thin radiating halo, the most unbefitting crown for one so deficient in grace– or righteousness, or purity, or boring decency - as Irene Adler.  

 _But the Devil has many faces and many names,_ Seb swallows thickly at the revelation, for he recalls that the Father of Evil, once hailed Lucifer, is at the core of his making, an angel too. Whether this argues that there is no true evil in world or no real goodness is yet to be determined, and Seb might be convinced by an optimist to believe in the possibility of the former if he hadn’t had the pleasure of knowing Jim Moriarty…

…and now Irene Adler, though he still can’t be sure just how deep her cruelty runs.

Some days, she would appear like another pretty woman, clever perhaps, but insignificant beneath Jim’s tall throne of chaos and bones. Yet there are moments, moments like this when she is practically dangling on the edge of her own destruction (because Sebastien can and will easily kill her ) or when she has retreated down the wells behind her eyes into the dark tunnels of her mind, that suggest to Seb that perhaps her limits stretch just as far as – if not farther than – Jim’s ever did.

Seb can tell, to an extent, that an unspoken thought ferments inside her somewhere deep, churning and waiting.  There is a heat inside both of them – Moriarty and Adler – but while Jim is akin to the Great Fire of Rome that burned for six days and nights, Irene is the inconspicuous lava buried beneath the ground. One ought not to stand too close, for fear of being scorched by the molten ire gushing through her two dilated pupils. Vesuvius made an example of Pompeii, perhaps the same would befall London.

“I think you’re forgetting your place, _tiger_.”

“Don’t call me that,” Seb spits out, but Irene Adler takes a step towards him, unfazed.  

“So pull the trigger. Do it. Remember that the minute I die, so does he, and I wonder I long _you’d_ last without either of us.”  

“What he is now… you call that _alive?_ I lost him in that freezing water, you know I did.”

“Ah, so you haven’t forgotten how he ended up in such a state, or who did this to him.”

Swallowing, Seb speaks again, but his tone no longer holds its vigour, “How much longermust I wait? Give me a target, any target.”

The woman grasps his jaw in one hand, wrenching his face up. Her nails dig into his skin, causing him to hiss as he feels them draw blood. The soldier yields, dropping his hand and the tension his body, as a beast with its hind leg bloodied and mangled inside a hunter’s trap would come to terms with its unfortunate circumstances and looming demise.

_Poor tiger._

Irene takes pity on him. Her clutch softens into a petting stroke, and she murmurs in that sultry voice, “Have patience my dear colonel, and the vengeance you crave shall be yours in time.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Her palm is wrinkled because it is burnt, and this will come into play later.  
> ** The historical figures I mention and use liberally in this story come from actual people and events. I try to be as chronologically accurate as possible, but for the sake of the story I took liberties with the months during which they occurred.  
> 1)Kitchener did indeed lead a successful attack in Sudan in 1896, however the sinking of the British cargo ship is entirely of my own making.  
> 2) Jameson Raid was a blotched attempt by British expatriates in Transvaal Republic (modern day South Africa) early January of the same year.  
> 3)The state known as Zanzibar occupies the area we now know as Tanzania, and its pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini ruled from 1893 til his death in 1896. Allegedly, he was poisoned by his cousin Khalid bin Barghash who proclaimed himself the new sultan and this triggered the 40 minute Anglo-Zanzibar War. Sultan Khalid, unlike his deceased cousin, was not pro-British, and after losing the war, Zanzibar became almost completely controlled by British governors.  
> 4)Lord Aldenham was an actual person, and his descendants still lives in the UK. I've changed his oldest son's name from Alban to Aaron, and used Lord Aldenham's christian first name Henry instead of of Hucks (which is what he is most remembered as). 
> 
> No disrespect is intended for any of this historical figures or events. Anything that may happen to them is purely from my imagination. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	6. V

Since birth, Annabel has been afflicted with a case of myopia. Her condition is not too severe, much to her parents’ relief, but standing at 20ft distance, she still cannot make out more than half the letters on the fourth row of the Snellen chart. The doctors, along with John, recommend the application of optical lenses for ease of mobility, but Annabel cannot be persuaded to acquiesce to this course of treatment. In part this is due to the sliver of vanity that every person has, much less a girl as pretty and delicate in appearance as Miss Watson. But more than that, it is because whatever disadvantage her nearsightedness may have caused is redeemed by her most unusually keen auditory and olfactory senses.

As an informant once revealed, Annabel supposedly has the ability to differentiate and identify over five hundred different spices and floral scents. And later, during a far more discreet (and far less legal) meeting between me and another source, I was told (which I always believed was done as a warning to prevent me from snooping too deep into Miss Watson’s personal life) that she can also smell blood, fear, and lies.

Fortunately for me, I never had to put to test that last bit of information. But anyway… 

The point that I am trying to make, all theatrics aside, is that the moment Annabel walks into the dining room the morning after the ball at Ritchall Place, she is able to immediately detect – even though John is turned away from her and thus hiding his tightened jaw and pinched brows – that something catastrophic is about to happen.

What she doesn’t know, through no fault of her own, is that as far as her father is concerned, something catastrophic has already happened. Early that morning, he received two consecutive, distressful telephone calls. The first was from Anthea, and as always her words were terse. She had wasted no time in informing him of exactly what went down the night before and of the recommendations from Mycroft on how to proceed from this point on.  _Act with caution,_ is the general gist of the message. Barely seconds after the conversation with Anthea ended, and before John even had the chance to process the implications of the news, the telephone rang again. This time, it carried the slightly worried voice of Molly, who was wondering if Sherlock had been pulled away to another case since he apparently never returned to Baker Street after his nocturnal appointment with his brother.

_Shit._

It isn’t a great leap of imagination for John to guess where Sherlock might’ve gone. No matter how utterly manipulative and wicked “The Woman” is (John still can’t think about Sherlock’s title for Irene without a touch of cynicism and distaste), or how blatantly obvious it is that her intentions are less than pure, Sherlock has never been able to help himself whenever Irene Adler is the person of interest. (To be honest, Irene's intentions aren't all that obvious, since she literally made fools of the entire British government the last time she was in town.)

Normally John wouldn’t be the one to judge, because to each their own. Who is he to dictate whom Sherlock can give his hard-won affection to? John doesn’t  _like_  the fact that it just so happens to be one of the most notorious criminal/blackmailer – ahem, sex worker, to quote Mycroft – in the world, but he figures that’s Sherlock's business, and his business alone.

Sally complains on occasion that the detective has a heart of stone, but John knows it’s really made of iron, and iron crumbles easily when it rusts. The effect of oxidation can be scrubbed away perhaps, but the damage can never be undone. From the beginning, it's been perfectly clear to John that if Sherlock is not able to subdue ‘The Woman’ (and by subdue he means forget, arrest or compartmentalise), she would eventually break him.

To be honest, of all of them who had had the misfortune of meeting Irene Adler, with the exception of Mycroft, it is John who is most glad when Sherlock returned from Canada without her.

 _All for the best,_ he had thought back then, even as a twinge of guilt festered uncomfortably in his conscience to see his friend so affected.

_“He won’t let me approach the child,” Molly had confessed a week after Sherlock’s return. Sherlock was in the nursery again, staring transfixed at the sleeping infant, nudging the cradle with his foot at a steady rhythm. “John, I’m afraid – the mother –”_

_“Is no longer in the picture. If she is…well, he wouldn’t have come back alone, would he?”_

_“He didn’t come back alone.”_

_Right. No. He didn’t._

_“Molly, I can’t begin to understand how all this must feel for you, but I do want you to know that Ir – that woman and whatever happened between her and Sherlock, is –“ He had wanted to say finished, but something held him back, a feeling which he didn’t want to acknowledge suspending at the back of his mind warning him none of this was over. “It happened before you and Sherlock.”_

_“Who is she? The woman.”_

_“She’s… I think it’s best if you talked to Sherlock about this.”_

_Molly nodded, “Do you think…do you think he’ll leave me?”_

Sherlock didn’t.

The worry that had everyone on edge for weeks never came to fruition. Not that Mycroft or the Baroness Dowager were going to let him get a divorce even if he demanded one, since reputation is still precious to such families as the Holmes, and certain pretences must be kept. Still, Sherlock never asked, and after a while, when the grief and shock subsided, he returned to his normal self.

John won’t kid himself by pretending that his best friend’s marriage is at all exemplary of the conventional definition, but Molly is Sherlock’s wife, and Sherlock’s actions over the years speak that the weight of her position is not lost on him.

To this day, John is still unclear over the circumstances behind his best friend’s union; it all happened rather quickly. The only thing he knows is that there’d been some agreement made by their late fathers and some meddling by their mothers, and a certain childhood crush which one party may or may not have harboured for the other, all of which resulted in Molly joining the family and Sherlock gaining a partner he never expected.

The idea was brought up July of 1888, only three months after Irene Adler had been forced to flee London, and during a snowy February weekend the following year the detective was married. Only a month after tying the knot, the neighbours were told that the newly minted Mrs. Holmes had retreated to their country house, and by August, it was said that she’d given birth to a boy. That would’ve made the conception date pre-matrimony, but Sherlock was known for so many other crazy shenanigans and Molly was so well-liked that a little bleb such as this was easily overlooked.

If anyone ever questions whether or not the detective loves his wife, no one can deny that during the course of their marriage, even with a three-year long separation, they maintain a very kindred relationship. It is the comforting and harmonious fashion by which they could (and do) live side by side that makes everyone temporarily forget the make-up of this household.   

James ( _Hamish! For the love of God, I never agreed to the name James!_ Sherlock’s protests never ceased) grew up so lovely, so clever, bearing a level of compassion that exceeded both his biological parents. He loves Molly, and she him, as if he were her very own.

So now, in face of the rude interruption of the pseudo-domestic life Sherlock had grown accustomed to, John must make an amendment to his original attitude towards Sherlock’s relationship with Irene Adler.

What was once Sherlock’s business is no longer his business alone. Not anymore.

The detective is not a man unattached, and had it been any other woman, John  _might_ believe that she will respect the sanctity of his ties, but this is Irene Adler. Prudence and discretion are for the weak and idiotic in her eyes, and she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

_What does she want?_

And that’s just the question, isn’t it?

On the surface,it appears that she is in this for her “dowry”, and if money is her endgame then they can all rest easy. But John has not accompanied Sherlock Holmes for all these years and learned nothing.

However, if it’s the detective’s heart she is after, well, she could’ve had him seven years ago. Sherlock Holmes is a man, albeit one who holds cold logic and astuteness of the mind above all else, but a man all the same. At the delicate moment of meeting between him and the life he and The Woman co-created, when his judgment is impaired by the overwhelming emotions he was bound to experience, any request made by her would have gone unrefuted.

Which is why Mycroft had been adamant about accompanying Sherlock to the colonies. He  _said_ it was because he is the head of their family and the child is his heir, but the excuse fooled no one. Mycroft was  _afraid,_  of more than the possibility that Irene Adler would ask something insane of the detective, but of the certainty that if such questions were asked, Sherlock would not deny her anything. 

But she made no request. As far as John knew, Irene offered nothing but a name for the child (Hamish, out of spite or sentiment, he is unable to tell) and a hasty goodbye on a spare piece of parchment.

To this day, he can’t understand why she would do this – but then, he never assumes that he can understand her to begin with. On a good day, he can barely fathom what goes on inside Sherlock’s head, never mind inside a twisted female invert of him.

The ending presented seven years ago had been clear enough. The dominatrix had left the detective. Dominatrix - another title that had John cringing involuntarily, because while the prostitution rates in England are alarming and the existence of sex workers is nothing one would bat an eye about, the concept of a  _dominatrix_  is still rather disconcerting.

Whatever she wanted, Sherlock was not on the top of her priorities list.

Somehow, John doesn’t know if it’s for better or worse.

But… that was her mentality then… who knows what her standpoint is now. Suppose she changed her mind? Suppose Sherlock had been of interest to her all along, and for whatever reason she’d put him  _on hold_ until now…..

God forbid Sherlock be willing, because then she would undoubtedly be unstoppable.

 _Not even death can defeat her_ ,  _as proven on multiple occasions,_  John contemplates sardonically,  _never mind the vows between man and wife_.  His morals and righteousness as an English gentleman just cannot abide by what he knows is definitely going to happen next.

_He’ll fly to her like moth to flame. Moriarty said he’d burn the heart out of Sherlock.  Guess he succeeded._

From Anthea’s tone, there is definitely something beyond the impending scandals Adler’s reappearance will invoke, but John doesn’t want to think about that right now. Eventually it’s going to become his problem too, because anything involving the British government will involve Mycroft, and anything involving Mycroft persecuting Irene will involve Sherlock, and if Sherlock is going to be throwing himself into yet another catastrophe, as his best friend, John is not going to stand by and watch it all go down in flames.

Though he’d prefer otherwise, he knows that from this moment on, there is one thing he can count on.

_There will be blood._

Taking a deep breath, the kind that usually means he is going to start yelling at Sherlock and is just trying to increase the oxygen in his alveoli for the job, John rubs his temples.

He remembers when they first met, after his return to London in ‘81 from the second Afghan war. He was a young man, 25, and had no problems chasing after a madman and cleaning up his messes. Fifteen years later, that much hasn’t changed. 

Some other things had though. For instance, back then he would’ve flung on his coat and made a beeline for Sherlock’s flat, mouth ready for yelling and fist ready for punching, but as with most things nowadays, John’s first reaction is always one word.

“Mary!!“

“Pa?”

_Right._

Actually, a lot has changed.

“Pa, what’s the matter?” Annabel approaches him. She looks intensely alike to Mary when she’s like this, head tilted, eyes fixed in scrutiny. John knows his daughter is watching him, even though she cannot see him very well.

“Breakfast! Come, Bel, sit. Your Ma made sausages and your favourite, grilled tomatoes.” John ushers Annabel towards the food, just as Mary’s footsteps can be heard coming towards them.

Annabel picks up the crisp, clicking sound of glass bottles in beat with her mother’s gait (the milk just got delivered then – late – since it’s already half past eight), and the rustling of papers (a stack – The Times – it’s the only one they’re subscribed to).  

“John, have you –“ Mary appears in the dining room, and upon seeing Annabel, seems to remember herself.

“Morning love,” She presses a kiss to the top of her daughter’s neatly brushed hair, setting the fresh milk on the dining table.

“What’s going on?” Annabel inquires curiously. “Who was that on the telephone?”

“Nothing –“

“Quickly Bel, no time to waste. Didn’t you say you wanted to go out to the countryside today with James? The faster you finish breakfast, the faster we can go to Baker Street to pick up Mrs. Holmes and James,” Mary diverts the conversation. She glances at her husband, “Sally is driving the carriage. If a case comes up, you and Sherlock will just have to go on foot, or find a growler or cabriolet.” 

  _An outing?_  John blinks. A chance to talk to Sherlock alone then.

“John,” Mary pivots her head towards the other room, the universal parental gesture for ‘let’s talk somewhere where the kids can’t hear us’, and John follows without a word. 

Annabel watches her parents retreat into the sitting room further down the hall, too far for even her sensitive ears to pick up on more than just snippets of their conversation.

Amongst the hissing whispers, little clues make their way into Annabel and piques the curiosity of her precocious mind.

Annabel nibbles on her toast thoughtfully. The fact that her mother has left the milk on the table but taken the newspaper with her does not go unnoticed by her, and she quietly makes plans to sneak a look at it to see what the fuss is all about.  She’ll have to do it when her parents are busy – or when she’s alone. She’s been trying to find such an opportunity for days, in order to carry out the task that James had bestowed upon her – to obtain access to her father’s old journals.

There is that mysterious woman they are trying to identify, and Annabel has a feeling – a quite certain one – that all will be revealed if she can just get her hands on her Pa’s writing.

Mary and John are still talking – they sound anxious, agitated, and for John’s part, bloody angry. Annabel knows that there are loads of things her parents don’t tell her, things that parents just don’t tell their children, but she has a distinct impression that whatever is happening this time is secretive for entirely different reasons.

A shocking event occurred overnight, something which is on the front page of that newspaper and has both her parents on edge in a way she’s never witnessed before.  The astonishment that John had tried hard to suppress had been reflected in the way Mary had practically stumbled into the dining room with the milk and papers.

But alas, for all that Annabel is able to deduce from her mother and father’s behaviour, she could not possibly have known that only one of their reactions had been genuine.

Suddenly, a shrill  _rinnngg_ jolts her out of her thoughts.

“I’ll get that, Bel!” John yells, but the girl ignores him.

Hopping off her seat, she reaches for the telephone, “Good morning, this is the Watson household.”

The voice on the other end makes her smile, though she knows the circumstances that prompted this call should offer no warrant to smile (unless one is a psychopath or Sherlock Holmes). Nevertheless, this may very well be the opportunity she’s been waiting for. Her father would be busy running about, which would create the perfect distraction for her to sneak away his journal.

“Pa! It’s Detective Inspector Lestrade,” Annabel calls out. “He says there’s been a murder.”

 

***

 

Greg decides that he definitely woke up on the wrong side of the world today.

Or better yet, this is still a bloody dream.

Ah. Bugger.  Poor choice of words.

Indeed the crime scene he finds himself standing before is nothing if not bloody.  The rubbish bins in this dirty back alley have come in very handy for when the constables’ stomachs decided to give up the breakfast consumed just minutes earlier.

Even Anderson is looking a tad green – and he’s a doctor, for Christ's sake. Ever since Stamford agreed to take up a teaching post at St. Bart’s, Anderson assumed the head coroner under Lestrade’s division.  His credentials are solid and his work ethic is competent enough – well, if one is to ignore the opinions of Holmes – but sometimes the man can be a bit of a pain.

Speaking of the devil…

Philip Anderson wipes his hand on a blood-sodden handkerchief as he makes his way slowly to the detective inspector. There is a smudge of blood on the side of his collar, and chunks of….human….in a glass jar.

“What on Earth is that?” Lestrade says after a stunned second.

“Well,” Anderson swallows thickly, “a part of a liver, I think. I’ll know better when I get this back to the morgue for more tests. ” Glancing around, he adds, “Where’s the dynamic duo? I would’ve thought this be right up their alley.”

Lestrade’s eyes bulge, “A liver?! Christ – “

“Inspector, what do we do with this?” A constable comes darting with a bloody mess on a cloth supported in the palms of his hands. “I found this behind the bins – I think it’s half chewed up to be honest.”

Anderson makes a face and peers down at the thing. “Ah, I was wondering where last quarter of the lung went. Jar it. Bring it back to the morgue. You haven’t happened to find a heart, have you?”

The constable shakes his head and marches off wordlessly. Half a minute later, as he forcefully hands the specimen of lung to another constable standing by the police carriage, he keels over and throws up.

The crowd gathering at the mouth of the alley is beginning to thicken, and the efforts of those trying to restrain them are wearing down as the numbers mount.  Over Anderson’s shoulders, Lestrade can see the flashes of cameras from reporters trying to capture any bit of detail. No doubt the pictures of that constable vomiting are going to end up in tomorrow’s papers.

If the situation isn't so dire, he might be inclined to worry about the Yarder’s reputation. As of now, he’s just worried the papers will write something blowing this whole thing way out of proportion and sending the public into a frenzy. Not that there’s any margin left for them to exaggerate things, really. This crime scene is as creative and gruesome as any journalist can possibly fathom.

“Well, I’m guessing you won't be able to tell me an exact cause of death then,” Lestrade sighs, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Not with half the internal organs hanging outside the body.”

“That’s being generous, I think.” Anderson confesses, “When we peeled back the skin on the chest, all that was left inside were the ribcages and parts of the trachea. His face is too bashed up for a good identification. I suppose we’ll have to wait for missing persons report, though I can say that time of death is more than six hours ago. I’ll know more precisely when I get him back to the morgue.”

“The victim was well-dressed – so he’s probably not a street dweller. How were his teeth? ”

“Missing. Well, most of it, anyway. He didn’t have calloused hands though. Nails were pulled out and the fingers were broken, but the palm of his hands is relatively smooth.”

_Jesus…. Somebody definitely wanted something out of him… poor bugger._

Suddenly, Lestrade is overcome by the urge to hit his head against something hard. The depravity of human nature knows no bound. After two decades of service with the Metropolitan Police, and after Jack The Ripper fiasco, he thought he’d just about seen it all.

Apparently not.

The inspector growls out in frustration, “Where in God’s name is Sherlock bloody Holmes? This is a 10! Hell, this is a 15!”

“Let me through – excuse me, pardon – let me through.”

Lestrade lets out a sigh of relief as John can be seen making his way through the crowd towards them; the case feels half-solved already. The Met may be full of competent officers, but none possesses a fraction of the mind that Holmes has. They need them, both him and Watson, and Lestrade is not afraid to admit it, his professional ego be damned.

On a regular day, the posh bastard rushes to crime scenes faster than a jackrabbit, wasting absolutely no time in making all of them feel inferior and hate him just a little bit more (well,  _not really_ ), but today of all days he seems to be taking his damn sweet time.

“Greg, Anderson. Hello. Right,” John greets them and straightens his jacket. “Where’s the body? Let’s take a look.”

Hold up a minute.

“Wait, wait. John. Er – not that I’m not happy you’re here – well, as happy as I could be considering someone has just been murdered – but, where is Sherlock?”

The doctor clears his throat, shuffling his feet and repeatedly clenching his fists in a way that usually means he’s either suffering from some extreme awkwardness ….or he’s about to punch you in the face. And boy, could the man pack a nasty club. Lestrade swears he sees a vein on Watson’s head pulsing at the mention of the detective’s name and takes a discreet step back.

“Right. About that.”

Anderson rolls his eyes, “Don’t tell me he thought this was too  _dull_  for him. Greg, you did say there was a disemboweled person involved right?”

Holding up the jar of mushed liver, he shakes it slightly as if to prove his point.

“Hold up, did you just say  _disembowelled_ person, and is that what I think it is?” John reels back. “Disembowelled. My god, disembowelled how?” He leans closer and lowers his voice, “Like…  _the Ripper_ disembowelled.”

(Technically it was more like stuffed-turkey disembowelled, but then again I have a different take on crime than most people.)

John knows fully well that he might be reaching, and that this may indeed be just a coincidence, because while the world is short on many things, psychopaths are not one of them. Still, the conversation with Anthea is fresh on his mind, and he can’t help but link the ideas together.

The criminal name causes both Lestrade and Anderson to freeze, but after a second, the former responds carefully, “I don’t think so. The _modus operanti_ doesn’t match. Our victim may be missing all of his internal organs, but we’re fairly certain it’s a man.”

_Right. Jack the Ripper only targeted women._

“John, what’s happened? Where’s Sherlock?”  

The angry air that was momentarily chilled by the news of disemboweled denizen clouds over John’s expression once more and with added fire. “When was the victim killed?”

Anderson frowns, slightly taken aback by John's evasion of the question, “Er, at least six hours ago. Why?”

The doctor nods, seemingly confirming a vow to himself.

_Alright, so it’s definitely not him lying in that alley with his guts hanging out, which means I’m definitely going to kill him. When I find him. If I find him._

_God what if he eloped._

Because Captain John Watson M.D, 5th Northhumberland Fusillier, 2 years in Afghanistan, veteran of Kandahar, Hellmand and Bart’s “bloody” hospital, much like his best friend, is a drama queen too.

“John, has something happened to Sherlock?” Lestrade is growing increasingly worried by the minute. “John?”

Putting on his best cavalier face, John shrugs, “No. He’s just….busy.”

It’s a terrible lie, and the way Lestrade’s eyebrows swim towards his greying hairline shows just how unconvinced he is. John knows he shouldn’t cover for Sherlock, since there’s a probable chance that he’s defiling the sanctity of Molly’s trust right now, which is the last thing John wants to advocate.

He would say his friend is exercising a very different definition of the word defile on Irene Adler too, except knowing the woman, it’s probably the other way around. And, with that thought in mind, he now has the urge to wash his brain with bleach.

Anderson crosses his arms, nearly dropping the glass jar full of liver. “Busy. Doing what?”

 _Or who,_ thinks John sarcastically. _Never thought I’d see the day when I have to make this kind of excuse for Sherlock bloody Holmes._

He’s always heard that this is what blokes do, vouch for their mates so they won’t get in trouble with the law or their wives, but Sherlock has always been so detached from ordinary functions that the possibility of these types of situations has never even been within consideration! Besides, John has always believed in doing the right thing because he is educated, disciplined and governed by morals, and therefore would never condone such undignified behaviour.

“He’s on some top secret mission for his brother. Won’t tell me what it is.” And yet he opens his mouth and the white lies just come pouring out. Of course, if anyone is to cause him to break away from his code of conduct, it would be Sherlock.

At the mention of Mycroft and secret government shenanigans, Lestrade is immediately placated. He gestures for John to follow him deeper into the alley and begins delving into the case. So preoccupied he is with this heinous crime at hand, that he completely misses the guilty grimace settling across the doctor’s face, as the honour which he holds in such high esteem shrivels up inside. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the BBC adaptation, John is said to be part of the 5th Northumberland Fusilier. In the ACD canon, John was an army surgeon wounded in battle at the Battle of Maiwand (in Hollmand) of the Second Anglo-Afghan war. However, historically, while the 5th Northumberland did exist during this time period, John could not have been part of its regiment. 5th Northumberland never participated in the Maiwand battle and instead was stationed elsewhere (northern regions). For John to have been in the Battle of Maiwand, he is more like to be part of the 66th Berkshire Regiment of Foot, who first landed in Bombay before marching towards Kandahar in 1880. 
> 
> CHAPTER SIX IS COMING TOMORROW (because it was meant to be one chapter, but it go too long)


	7. VI

The thing about John is that he worries way too much. And once he starts, his brain really doesn’t have much control on when to stop or the extent to which it will exaggerate everything.

John overreacts.

It’s not a new development.

Actually, to be fair, it’s not even his fault. Any other person who’d have to put up with whims as crazy and radical as Sherlock’s for as long, frequently, and consistently as John has, would’ve lost their mind or moved continents a long time ago. Some people called him loyal, others had their own opinions.

_He’s sweet. I can see why you like having him around, but then, people tend to get so sentimental about their pets._

_Somebody loves you. If I had to punch that face, it’d avoid your nose and teeth too._

Mycroft Holmes was once quoted as saying it’s some kind of God-sent miracle that his troublesome younger brother actually acquired long-term friendship, emphasising the statistical improbability of the event and not his non-existent belief in divine intervention. A man of Mycroft's position simply does not have the patience or time to invest in substances as unreliable as faith, but for whatever reason he seems to have faith in John.

Regardless, John’s behaviour towards the detective is distinctive from the conducts of the ordinary and very much lacking in self-preservation. By this comparison, a certain tenacity can be ascribed to the doctor’s character. After all, his unwavering trust in Sherlock and his frankly adorable loyalty had kept the man living, breathing and functioning for the last 15 years (well, minus the three-year Hiatus).

So, much like his daughter who subsidises her visual impairment with her other senses, whatever mental deficiency John has for remaining Sherlock’s best friend, he makes up for in his ability to overreact. Like it or not, his overreaction repeatedly saves lives, and if Sherlock really did elope in the night, several lives are bound to be ruined in the wake, and John can’t let that happen. Not on his watch.

Thankfully, no one eloped with anyone. In fact, Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes did not meet again after the encounter at Diogenes. The woman had gone to Belgravia where Moran had been waiting for her, and Sherlock, driven by a single-minded need not to fall victim to her tricks again, headed straight for Whitehall. After a little disguise, he successfully broke into the archive vaults of Scotland Yard.

Ironically, when Lestrade searched for him to consult on the murder in Kensington & Chelsea, Sherlock had been within the walls of the metropolitan police headquarters all along, just several floors beneath the ground.

It is near eleven o’clock by the time he climbs out from the archive vaults, dissatisfied with his findings and in need of his morning tea. Three basement levels, several dozen rooms on each, all of which are locked (thus need to be picked), and three-quarters of which are filled with useless information – the archive is a catalogue disaster!  Aided by only an emergency lamp (the basement’s electrical is horribly wired), it had taken him forever to find what he had come for.

John is right, in a sense; Sherlock _had been_ on a top secret mission, and it _is_ related to his brother.

As Sherlock had suspected, the files on The Ripper case are hidden away in the archives, but covering only the extent of The Met’s involvement. The more secretive (and useful) information must have been put away by his brother’s people. If he is to get his hands on those, he will have to be more creative.

Nevertheless, this is a place to start. He must find John at once, because unlike himself, the doctor had actually been present at the time of the Whitechapel Murders and could have inadvertently picked up details that had eluded the police. Luckily, with every officer in Scotland Yard talking about the murder in Kensington, it isn’t hard for Sherlock to deduce where his best friend ought to be.

Securing the Ripper file under his arm, he hails down a cab and climbs in with every intention of heading straight for the crime scene.

Of course, he never makes it there.

At the intersection of Knightsbridge and Sloane is a tearoom, with the reddest roses Sherlock has ever seen growing in small bushes beneath the long wide window. Three tables for two are placed against it, all empty save for the last, occupied by a woman in ivory lace and a veiled hat of the same style.

For a second he almost considers letting the opportunity slip by, until Irene takes a sip of her tea and glances casually out the window.

A loud angry cry barks from up ahead, horses can be heard neighing, and inevitably, traffic careened to a standstill, placing Sherlock and Irene directly in each other’s sight.

The choice is obvious to both of them – either they pretend to have never seen each other, or be prepared to open an overdue conversation of a painful topic.   

Irene holds his gaze for a long, stifling moment – as if contemplating whether or not she should extend some sort of invitation, though neither her eyes nor her countenance betray her thoughts.

A slice of sunlight hits the window, resulting in a blinding glare which breaks their trance, and just like that, she is gone from his view.

 _A deceptive transparency,_ Sherlock muses, his inner voice a touch too maudlin for his liking.

Most people are what he considers horrendously obtuse. When they look at Irene, they see nothing at all, or at best, a simple reflection of themselves. It isn't entirely their fault, since persuasion is her expertise. To cater to the whims and fantasies of the pathetic, she had developed the uncanny ability to shed personas as she would the garments in her wardrobe. One would think, then, that disguises are her protection, but when in fact nudity is her greatest advantage. It has always been a frustrating paradox to those who seek to unravel her.  

Sherlock knows, however, that if people learn to observe from a critical angle, they  _may_ see the woman beyond the looking glass, but only to an extent. No matter how clean, it is in the disposition of glass to diffract the light rays attempting to penetrate it. The distortion might be microscopic, so small that it can thwart the shrewdest of minds, but Sherlock knows that the barest of discrepancies in data can pit the favour of the game against him. 

And how many times has he lost already?

So many that he can’t possibly afford to lose again.

Many people presume to know Irene, yet all but one have failed. Even Sherlock, as the exception, would be hard-pressed to boast that he knows _all_ of her. The barrier stands between them as it stands between her and everyone else. The only difference which sets him apart, to use her words, is that he knows where to look.

But does he really?

Sherlock can’t say that he does anymore.

The landau thrusts forward, jerking him out of his thought. Up ahead, the traffic impediment is gone, and the vehicles on the road are quick to come to life. Very soon, he will have passed the tearoom, and with it, the woman inside.

 _Just as well. I would have nothing to say to her anyway_ , Sherlock reasons, in spite of the very distractive burning sensation beneath his diaphragm that has nothing to do with his empty stomach. He has shoved it there because it’s too combustive to keep in his mind-palace and would assuredly set the whole place up in flames. He tells himself that he doesn’t have time for it right now – not with The Ripper case so demandingly landing into his lap.   

Her cold performance at his brother’s last night made perfectly clear her disinterest for any sort of engagement with him. He should, as his pride demands, counter her indifference with his own. Yet, seeing her that way, unmoved, unperturbed, and most frustratingly, unwilling to offer any sort of explanation for what had happened to her, ignites the anger he keeps forcefully curbed. Without preoccupation of the mind, he can feel its flames surging from beneath and licking at his lungs.

Sherlock knows she owes him nothing, not legally nor socially, and he would be a moron if he thought he’d get any sort of _apology_ from her, but…. _an explanation_!

Surely, that is not too much to ask.

But she won’t tell him anything, not even a lie.

_Because, little brother, people only lie when it matters._

_Shut up, Mycroft._

If she is to be an adversary, perhaps he should start to see her as one.

A piece of cloud shifts overhead, chasing away the sun and clearing the view. Irene is no longer looking at him. Her attention is taken by the tea in front of her, and the way she bends towards her cup suggests she’s already half-convinced he will not go to her.

When she realises that the heat of sunlight is gone from her cheek, she turns to the window yet again, finding Sherlock exactly as he had been moments earlier. At the sight of him staring at her fixatedly, something wavers across her mirror-like expression, a mixture of genuine surprise, a hint of tenderness, and the barest of remorse. 

Her slip is fleeting and she catches herself, but it is too late. Sherlock had seen through her, if only for a split second, and knows that there are still cracks in her armour where he can find his grip.

The detective stops his cab and gets out, the murder in Kensington and his mission to seek out John stowed away for later.

 

~~~

 

The tearoom is exceptionally busy for eleven in the morning, though it is no grander or lesser than any other tearoom in London. Its patrons busy themselves with gossip, and the content of their cups is a variation of the ever-popular English Breakfast brew.

However, upon closer inspection, Sherlock quickly discerns that the subject of attention is one of the maids employed at this establishment. Soo-lin, as she politely introduces herself while taking Sherlock’s coat, is thin and willowy, with dark exotic **(1)** eyes and a headful of black straight hair pinned away from a round visage that is most definitely not of Western ancestry.

She leads him to the window where Irene is waiting, and Sherlock immediately understands The Woman’s calculated choice to take her tea at this place. With everyone’s attention on the waitress, no one would be giving much mind to a quiet unchaperoned woman.  Even as she is joined by a tall male companion, the crowd continues to remain oblivious. The atmosphere is not overly cacophonic, but the voices blend together to create a filtering buzz around their conversation. 

“Hello, Miss Adler,” greets the detective as he slips smoothly into his seat.

“Mr. Holmes,” she offers a terse smile, eyes glancing down his chest. “I see you’ve been busy.”

Pausing briefly to consider, Sherlock decides there is absolutely nothing to be gained by keeping the Ripper files from her. Whatever the Met has gathered is trivial knowledge and easily retrievable by a skilled investigator; the real details, the useful ones, are hidden away inside his brother’s head, a place he doubts even Irene Adler can access without substantial aid.

“Naturally, I’ve never been able to refuse a good serial murderer. They always have to be clever.” Sherlock draws out the file he kept hidden on the inside of his jacket and places it boldly beside the plate of sugar cookies, as one might a casual novel, to be browsed while sipping tea.

Irene’s eyes land on the old dossier, slightly taken aback by the detective’s willingness to share.

Sherlock observes her carefully. He has read the files himself, and knows it is of no consequence, but Irene doesn’t. If she is looking for something particular, showing this to her might just help him gauge the depth of her involvement and the true motive behind her interest in this cold-case. He refuses to believe, even for second, that her pursuit of Jack the Ripper has anything to do with her dowry, and her ties to Godfrey Norton further confirm his suspicions. Whether her gains are commensal to the endgame of someone else’s scheme, as it had been before, or the product of her own orchestration, Sherlock knows that there will be a hefty price to pay. 

Mycroft may think his brother dearest is compromised by her – and maybe he is – but if he thinks he alone can hold the fort against The Woman, then he will be in for a rude awakening. Like it or not, Mycroft needs Sherlock to deal with Irene, and for once, the younger Holmes is more than happy to oblige.

“Take a look, it’s the only reason why you’ve come back, isn’t it?” He slides the folder towards her diplomatically, but the gesture does nothing to hide his derisive undertone.

Irene had started to reach out for it, but his words still her hand and she flinches as if he’d slapped her.

She stares at him unabashedly, debating with herself whether she should just let it the comment slide. How many times has she had this conversation with herself? All those sleepless nights and lightless days….if she had had any guilt once for leaving him and…and Hamish, it no longer exists. The moment she entrusted her son to Julia Odgen, she had told herself that conscience was another burden better left behind, or she would not survive.

And she _had_ to survive.   

“I really hope you didn’t come here to fight, Sherlock,” says Irene. “But, the answer to your question is yes. It is the only reason why I’m back in London.”

Returning to this city, Sherlock’s antagonism is what she’d anticipated the most. Knowing him, he will be stubborn, neurotic and unrelenting until he gets what he wants to hear from her.  The truth. But she can’t give him that, not yet.

Someday maybe….maybe when Hamish is grown, she will explain everything to her son, to whom she bears every affection and owes every apology. But to his father, Irene is firm in believing that hers debts are paid.

She has nothing to apologise for, because she has done right by him in every way, even though he may not know it. All she wants him from now (or better: what she _should_ want from him), are his deductive skills to help her solve the case. 

It’s sad, because what they truly crave from each other, neither is at liberty to give.

Sherlock is observing her with those cool, pale eyes, and Irene gathers her own expression cannot be much warmer. There is an undisputable realness to his attitude; it is not only him trying to distance himself from her. The distance is already there, a long and hazardous road paved with broken trust, shattered hopes, and everything they never had the chance to say to each other.

 _He must be burning up inside,_ contemplates the woman. That’s the thing about Sherlock; he doesn’t explode – he implodes, and it’s sucking up all the warmth that he has. Funny enough, she knows what it feels like, that anger in the pit of your stomach and the fire that somehow burns cold.

It’s hell in every imaginable way, and she’s been roasting in it alone for far too long and thinks it’s high time that he joins her. 

And if he ends up hating her for the rest of her life (which might not be all that long if she’s not careful), well… let’s say Irene had long-since come to terms with that scenario.

Sherlock narrows his eyes, “ _What_ do you want?”

“My dowry.”

“You can’t think that I’d believe that.”

She never expected him to, but now that he has declared his suspicions, the conversation can go one of two ways. Either she acknowledges his suspicion and dares him to solve her – a decision which is sure to be a slippery slope to her losing control of the whole operation – **_or_** , she twists the direction of this conversation towards a topic which is much more frivolous and uncomfortable for the both of them.

The matter of her impending nuptial and the unresolved…..whatever this is…. between them; it would require them to speak of _feelings,_ and she really has no capacity to discuss _any_ of hers, much less ones regarding Sherlock.

What she _wants_ is for him to focus more on finding the Ripper and worry less about her. She needs him focused on one task and one task only, something which he is evidently unable to do if he’s spending all his time theorising why she has suddenly reappeared.

Her objective is obvious then: she has to, within the course of this exchange, give him enough cause to lower his doubt to a level where it will not impede his willingness to help her, and to do so without revealing her cards to him.

It wouldn’t be easy, but Irene is confident that she knows Sherlock and his sentiments. If it just so happens that she must employ her said knowledge to manipulate him, then by god, she will do it.

 “Why?” she challenges. “Because you can’t reconcile with the idea that I would want something as ordinary as marriage? That I must have an alternate motive?”

Sherlock counters immediately, “As a matter of fact, yes, because as you once told me, you are not made for marriage. The concept of matrimony is for the sentimental, which you _clearly_ are not.”

The muscles around Irene’s jaw tighten visibly. Did he really think she was some heartless monster? Well… it would look that way from his standpoint, wouldn’t it, considering the circumstances of their last communication?

Pushing down her irritation, Irene smirks instead. “I think, Mr. Holmes, you are confusing marriage with love. Not everyone marries for affection, a fact which I’m sure you are _very_ familiar with.”  

Sherlock freezes, then slowly ~~,~~ straightens in his seat, tilting his chin upwards defiantly.

Oh, she had struck a nerve. Irene chides herself inwardly. Despite her best efforts, it would seem her own emotions are not as caged in as she had hoped they’d be. They don’t have a lot of time, and she must tread carefully.

“You make your assumptions rather decidedly for someone who only met my wife yesterday,” Sherlock snaps, his lips curl in derision.

Unfazed, Irene juts out her chin in a similarly manner. “I don’t _assume_ anything. I _know._ ”

“How?”

Irene opens her mouth, pauses, and then closes it. She’d thought it would be obvious to him, especially after last night. Does he really think he is such a good actor or that people are generally so blind that they cannot see what is blatantly in front of them? She sits very still, waiting a second, two, and then says rather quietly,

“Because you didn’t dance with her.”  

 

_~~~_

_The crowd is laughing; Irene had just made a clever little comment that would be offensive if not for the flirtatious smile that has everyone convinced she is simply being a lark. She has her arm looped through her fiancé’s, and is giggling prettily._

_Beside Sherlock, Molly is tickled like the rest, and no one notices the frigid atmosphere around the consulting detective._

_“Father, it’s time for the dance,” Aaron cuts in from behind._

_Lord Aldenham shakes his head and chuckles, “Aaron, son, while I am glad you are so attentive to details, you can’t expect me to do that dance at my old age! Katherine, love," he pats her on the back of her hand apologetically._ _"You will have to forgive me.”_

_Irene coos, “Henry, don’t fret; it’s not of great importance. The dance is merely symbolic of our devotion to each other, and we have that, so it’s enough.”_

_The party-goes nod their head approvingly, despite not really knowing to what dance the Gibbses are referring. Sherlock fears he might throw up, for he knows exactly what they’re talking about._

_“But Father, it’s our tradition – bad luck if you don’t,” Aaron argues. “Perhaps you can skip the more physically demanding portion.”_

_“Aaron, nonsense! If it’s done, then it has to be done well, or we’re better off not doing it at all. It’s our family dance, and I shan’t besmirch its artistic integrity by being a bumbling fool.”_

_“Sherlock, what are they talking about?” Molly leans over and inquires._

_“It’s –“_

_A nosy noblewoman interjects, “Molly, love, the dance is called La Voluta, meaning The Spiral or –“_

_“Desire Her,” Molly concludes, her rudimentary understanding of Italian allowing her to realise that the title is also a clever play on the verb “volere” – to desire._

_“Yes, exactly!” the noblewoman nods excitedly. “It’s been a tradition in the Gibbs family for some generations to perform this dance at the engagement party. I had the fortune of seeing Lord Aldenham dance this piece with the late Lady Aldehnham at their engagement some five decades ago.  It has a brilliant choreography, and the late Lady Aldenham was a phenomenally good dancer.” In a lowered voice, she whispers, “Frankly, I don’t think this one can compare, so it’s good that they won’t be doing it, lest the poor thing embarrass herself in front all these people.”_

_On the other side of the conversation, Aaron can be heard back-peddling whilst shifting awkwardly from one foot to another, looking very much coerced. “Father you know I would dance in your stead if I could. Do you not recall the utter disaster at my own wedding? I bruised Caroline’s foot and nearly dropped her during the lift - ” Then, in his frantic scramble to excuse himself from the duty his father is trying to press onto him, his eyes land on Sherlock._

_“William,” Aaron practically pleads._

_Molly turns to her husband, curious and surprised. “Sherlock?”_

_At once, everyone’s eyes are on him, but the only pair he cares for are the steel blue ones gazing at him from beneath furrowed brows over Molly’s shoulder._

_“My lords and ladies, it occurred to me that you do not yet know the origin story of La Voluta,” Aaron, ever the diplomat and wordsmith, jumps onto the opportunity. “You see, my paternal grandfather and Sherlock’s grandfather, the late Lord Alasdair Holmes, were the very best of friends, and as such they did everything together. Even when it came time to marry. Lord Holmes and my grandfather married a pair of sisters, and for their brides, they devised a particular dance as a show of their love for them. Both being young, well-traveled, educated young men, their tastes were indigestible by their far more conservative parents, and so the dance was deemed ‘inappropriate’ for a wedding. However, after much negotiating and pleading, the elders of the family had finally conceded to letting the couples dance this at engagement celebration, and the routine had been an absolute success. Thus, the tradition lived on.”_

_Aaron's recount evokes a succession of excited murmurs amongst the guests, who are easily moved by tales of romance. Several ladies are seen fluttering themselves with their fans, probably wishing that their husbands had been thoughtful or talented enough to write them a dance._

_Sherlock can feel his heart drumming beneath his sternum and hear the roaring of blood in his ears._

_“So, William, if you could,” Aaron smiles encouragingly, the apology clear in his kind brown eyes. “I would consider it a personal favour. That is if Molly does not object.”_

_“I really am not much for dancing-”  “No, I have no objection-“_

_Now is one of those times that Sherlock wishes his wife were less understanding, less kind, and more shrill, jealous and petty, because then she would surely not let him perform La Voluta with another woman. Or perhaps, the reason that she has no objection is because she does not know just how intimate it is, given that she had not personally experienced it. At their engagement, Sherlock had performed a simple waltz with her and sulked for the remainder of the night._

_“Molly –“_

_“No, it’s perfectly alright love,” she smiles at him calmly. “It’s a favour for family.”_

_Of course she wouldn’t be angry; this is by no means the worst thing he’s done to her as husband. He had made her a widow for three years, saddled her with another woman’s child, and is still constantly inattentive. She has put up with so many of his other nastier habits and eccentrics that this must not seem like much to her at all…_

_Except that she has no idea that the woman who is about to be Sherlock's partner is the only one he would have been willing to dance La Voluta with …_

_“Thank you.”_

_Smiling wider, Molly squeezes his arm. “Go on. Have fun.”_

_Sherlock squares his shoulders, and puts on his most charming smile as he marches over to the Gibbses. “Aaron, Lord Aldenham, since my dearest is so kind to lend me, I offer my dancing service. Miss Wolfe?”_

_He holds out his hand._

_Irene turns to Lord Aldenham and presses a kiss upon his hand. “For you, my love.” Though the heat in her gaze cast upon Sherlock as she takes his hand devalues her words down to silly farce._

_The corner of her ruby lips tilts upwards, and she curtsies in a coy fashion, “Mr. Holmes.”_

_Her voice flows like honey over the vowels of his name._

_The others part ways for them as he leads her to the center of the ballroom, where a large space has cleared for the dance. How the people gather in anticipation to watch the unsociable detective and the daring American!_

_The first violins strike their chords. _A minor, E flat major, E major.__

_He drops her hand and continues making his way towards the other end of the dance floor._

_Drums_.

_Step._

_Turn._

Oh. 

_The woman standing across the marble floor is no longer the charming Katherine Wolfe, but the deadly dominatrix who brought the nation to its knees._

_If this hadn’t been an unexpected turn of events, Sherlock would suspect that she had chosen that red dress on purpose. Hands placed on her waist, head held high exposing that long swan-like neck, she is glory wrapped in red silk, the fury of hell in human form, proud and prevailing as stormy wind._

_Dear god, he wants her to be his, and for the duration of dance, she can be. Wholly and completely his. In front of everyone and every pair of scrutinising eyes, and none of them will matter. Knowing this fact sends a surge of pleasure down his spine so potent he has to bite down on his own tongue to keep the wild grin from spreading across his face._

_Irene must’ve read his mind, because she returns his excitement with a smoldering look._

_The music seems to beckon her true self, and the change in demeanour is so obvious that even the audience notices the difference. A quiet hush falls over the ballroom; the only sound is people’s bated breath and the slow, tortured whine of the violin._

_If Irene has noticed her mask is slipping, she is unconcerned. Her attention does not waver from her partner, and neither does his from her._

_The syncopated migration towards each other is designed to be encumbered with hesitation, symbolising the budding of young romance, but theirs is a predatory prowl._

_Beyond his want, Sherlock has not forgotten his anger, and each careful step is placed with so much controlled force that he wonders if the marble beneath his feet will crack under the tension projected onto it by the two dancers._

_Skip. Tap. Leap. Stomp._

_Viola. Cello. Percussion._

_Turn._

_Irene’s red gown spirals at her feet, sweeping across the floor like the blood of men Sherlock had thought of killing for her (well….he did kill them)._

_A moment of rest. Laced fingers curl beguilingly at him._

Come.

_They glide forth until they are almost nose to nose, before pivoting and brushing each other by. Their shoulders are not supposed to touch, but they do anyway. Neither can resist the urge to steal a glance at the other as they make their round._

_Sherlock nearly stumbles when he feels the tickle of soft lace at his inner wrist, where Irene dares a teasing stroke with her pinky._

_This motion of ‘timid’ interaction is repeated several times, by the end, the tension has grown so thick Sherlock finds it distressfully difficult to allow her to pull away. After all, neither of them are the type to dance around their desires. So when their hands finally touch, a joining from the tip of their fingers to their elbows centred between their bodies, Irene’s cheeks are flushed pink._

Pupils dilated. 

_Their drumming heartbeats echo against each other through the pads of their aligned digits._

Pulse elevated.

_The real dance hasn’t even started, and yet the two of them are already losing their breaths. Literally. Sherlock has never been a fan of ties, and right now his bow tie is feeling particularly tight around his neck. As for Irene, he only needs to glance down at her milky cleavage rising from her corset to confirm that she is equally stimulated._

_“Like what you see?”_

_There is no trace of an American accent left. The familiar timbre of her voice washing over him causes him to take an extra breath._

_“Careful, your fiancé is watching.”_

_“So is your wife. And yet here you are.”_

_“Touché.”_

_The orchestra rolls in incrementally, 1 st violin, 2nd violin, 3rd, percussion, woodwind, viola, cello, brass…  _

_They begin with the waltz, but their actions are nothing akin to the union of two complementing bodies gracefully flowing to the music. Rather, their movements are tectonic, the slow grind of opposing forces. She takes three steps forward, he counters with eight._

_He lifts her arm, watching her twirl artfully, like the torrents of the most terrible and dreaded storm. The way she arches her spine and cranes her neck, just so, alludes to him that she had once been a dancer, another fact that he hadn’t known. Gripping her hand tighter, he tugs inwards, allowing the momentum of her spin to guide her back into his arms. Their bodies reunite just a smidgen too close for propriety, but neither seem to care._

_Lips parted, eye-lid hooded – if her goal is to make him lose control, then she doing an excellent job._

_The waltz gradually transforms into something else, a type of dance his grandfather had seen during his trip to the Spanish Americas that involves so much more physical contact than the regular English sensitivity can bear. Spaniards had always been more expressive with their passions compared to their repressed northern competitors._

_Oh but how their proximity allows him to inhale the light scent of her perfume: orris, bergamot and rose water. She still smells like the sin he remembers._

_Irene is some distance away, and in two strides_ _Sherlock is flush against her back, hands on her tiny waist and lifting her into the air. He hears her suck in a startled breath, as if not expecting to soar so high._

_One, two, three times he spins them around, arms growing sore under the strain but he cares not. From this angle, her back is arched, her arms stretch like wings above him, and she is magnificent._

_The diminishing brass signals her descent; gently, he places her down on her feet. When she turns to face him again, something gives him pause. A vulnerability like an awakening of a memory she’s long forgotten – it is in her inability to smile smugly at him and in the trembling of her hand as he reaches for it again._

_Note by note, the ardour of their rapid routine eases into a languid English social dance, light and cheerful. Flutes and the cellos weave a melody full of affection and understanding, but neither Sherlock nor Irene can care for any part of it._

_The calm stroll to the music is an unsettling experience. When his hand closes around hers, there is no pressure to push or pull. He just holds it, as if he had always done so, even though he’s never held her hand before, at least not in the way it was meant to be held._

_Sherlock realises that the discomfort they both feel towards the music is caused by their failure to connect to it. His grandfather and his friend had written the song for women they wished to spend the rest of their lives with.  These concluding measures of melody foreshadow the calmness of domesticity, encompassing all its subtle affections and tenderness, experiences Sherlock has shared only with Molly (and John, if he is to be technical). For Irene, there is probably no one at all who she could conjure to fulfill the meaning of the song, and it is the pain of this irony of which they are both acutely aware._

_Finally, the music fades into silence, and they stand face to face once again. The audience explodes into uproarious cheers and applauds, but neither can find the inclination to bask in the afterglow. Despite standing merely inches apart, they are both stricken with a keen sense of loneliness._

_“Thank you,” she says._

_“For what?”_

_“For saving this dance.” The ‘for me’ is left unsaid, but he hears it all the same._

_He can’t explain it, but her thank you feels like another goodbye, like a condemned prisoner being given her last supper._

_Katherine curtsies, he bows, and it is over._

~~~

 

The memory of marble floors and crystal chandeliers is dissolved by the warm aroma of bergamot. 

Sherlock opens his eyes. Hmm, he does not recall closing them, nor does he recall this level of fatigue.

“I ordered you tea. Earl Grey. Milky and half a teaspoon of sugar.”

Irene is observing him again, with the same kind of calm fascination in her eyes as the first night in Baker Street, when they baked in the warmth of the fireplace, content to sit in each other's silent company. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and the dark curls softened the sharp angles of her face.

He sips his tea. It is exactly to his liking.

Irene stares down at the lukewarm liquid in her own cup. The chrysanthemum flowers are beginning to brown and the dried Golgi-berries are bloated into tiny red spheres.    

A British woman with a taste for Chinese tea - there are layers to her that baffle him still. Sherlock wonders how much of what he knows about her, “details” of her past that she had shared, is actually true.

She glances up at him, a wry sort of half-expression flickering on her face. He knows she must have deduced his thoughts.

He’d never ask her to stop lying to him, quite frankly because he has never stopped lying to her either. Besides, hadn’t ‘not knowing’ been what drew him to her in the first place? Figuring out the puzzle, solving her, winning the game - he had loved it, hadn’t he?

Perhaps, he considers, beneath that layer of enjoyment there’s always been a discomfort waiting to emerge. It would have sat there forever, buried under the thrill, had he treated her like a case – a brilliant, magnificent case. Instead, he’d chosen to take her wrist and feel her pulse, to kiss her lips and her neck and her thighs and…

He had let sentiment slip in. It had swelled and swelled within the crevices of his mind and within her belly, until it had become too difficult to hide anything, and that discomfort which would’ve been meaningless, had risen to the surface.

In truth, there are so many things about The Woman that he does not know, many small details of her past of which he has no knowledge. Some of it might be what he’d usually consider trivial, and therefore does not concern himself with. Those things should be irrelevant to him; they have neither influence on his current state of life, nor offers alleviation to tangled state of of their ties. Nothing could possibly fix the disrepair and mistrust.  Yet the fact of the matter is, nothing is irrelevant to him which pertains to Irene Adler.

“Why are you here?” Sherlock uncrosses his legs, a sign that he is quite done with her games. If she does not say something to convince him, he will stand up and leave, because staying any longer means testing restraint which he may not have. Rather than making mistakes, he would simply extract himself from a tantalising situation.

"I want to see Hamish," Irene levels. It is not a request for permission, but a statement of intent - whether or not he agrees, she will do as she pleases.

Sherlock scowls. Irene Adler is a dangerous woman, only a fool would deny it, and her return only further testifies to the scope of her unpredictable nature. The ease at which she is able to slip out of his reach, out of Mycroft’s control, and then just as easily submerge herself back amongst England’s elite, is a reasonable cause for alarm. Sentiment or not, in matters regarding their son Sherlock will not falter. Hamish’s safety is not up for negotiation.

"No."

Her palm slams down on the folder, a reaction so uncharacteristically violent that it catches both of them off-guard. Irene frowns, disappointed in herself for losing her temper so carelessly. She opens her mouth to argue, but anger has robbed her of her words.

Sherlock raises a flippant eyebrow, challenging her to dispute him and not bothering to hide his own displeasure. Certainly, he can understand her displeasure, but to smack the table? That is a little dramatic. Even for her. Does she think she still has entitlement over Hamish, the boy she abandoned?  

“He’s my son.” Finally, she relents, reminiscent of how she had begged _please, you’re right. I won’t last even last six months._ “I have a right –“ 

“No, he’s _my_ son, and you have no right,” Sherlock snaps, teeth baring and lips curling. “Any right you might’ve had you signed away the day you decided that giving him to a stranger was a good idea.”

 “Julia is a _doctor._ I was –” Irene swallows, and takes a deep breath. “I did what I had to do. Every decision I made was in his best interest. You may not believe it, but I’m not a monster, Sherlock. I do love him; since the day I learned of his existence, I have loved him, so yes, I have a right to meet him. If nothing else, at least that. I deserve it.”

Sherlock chews over her words and says nothing.

“What…what have you told him about me? Does Hamish think I’m dead?” Nothing. Knowing Sherlock, he would not have revealed a word about Irene to their child, and that’s exactly what she’s counting on. 

Her question inspires its desired effect. Sherlock shifts in his seat. Good. He’s feeling guilty.

“His name is James, not Hamish,” responds the detective instead. Despite not being in the wrong, he still cannot meet The Woman’s imploring eyes. “No one liked the name Hamish, not John, not Molly and not Mummy. Especially not Mummy. She’s French and Hamish Holmes is just altogether too many ‘H’s’ for her to handle. We made a compromise – well they did, I was against –“

“He doesn’t know I exist, does he?” concludes Irene in a steely tone. Her fist clutches the Ripper file, and her face is stone.

Sherlock snaps his mouth shut. “You left him, and I thought – he’s happy as he is; if you really care for him the way you claim, I suggest you do not disturb what he has.”  _And what I have tried so hard to give him. Do not for a second think this was easy for me either._

Irene shakes her head and chuckles mirthlessly. “Why would I take from him what I have always wanted for him?”

“You don’t think it would’ve been better if he had his mother?”

“He has one.”

Molly Holmes is a good woman, and when she and Irene had conversed the night before, she had spoken of James with such genuine fondness that Irene did not have the heart to hate her for what she has. “She’s been good to him, yes?”

“As if he were her own,” smiles Sherlock, but the pride he takes in his wife twists Irene’s innards until she feels mildly nauseated.

Nevertheless, she knows he speaks the truth.     

During Sherlock’s absence, Hamish had caught the chicken pox from the neighbour’s son. Despite not being in his life, Irene had people watching him, and she was told at the earliest possible time that the detective’s child was ill.

She had sneaked into Baker Street in the dead of the night. Hamish was three, covered in tiny, itchy dots, cheeks burnt red, and incoherent from the fever. A cold cloth was pressed to his forehead, and he felt hot to her touch. The doctors had bled him, judging by the cotton wrapped around his little arm and a basin of dark blood sitting by the foot of the bed.

Irene had come back every night for a week, and had found Molly sleeping in a chair by Hamish’s bed every time. The worst had been the third night, when Hamish’s fever persisted at near forty degree Celsius for hours and there was nothing to be done. Irene had arrived to discover the younger woman slumped over the edge of bed, clutching the child’s hand. Her face was streaked and there was a patch of damp on the sheet where her tears had soaked through.

“If you wanted him –“

It’s Irene’s turn to be jostled out of her musings. “Of course I wanted him,” she snaps, offended from his insinuations, though it isn’t his fault. There is no way he could’ve known how difficult it was for her.  Julia had told them nothing, as she’d promised.  

“Then why did you leave?” It is the single question that has bothered him for years. He cannot think of another reason why Irene would leave without a word. If it was protection she needed, she had it! She was the mother of his child; Mycroft would have offered her all the protection in the world. If it was because of his marriage – Irene had never been the type to have an objection to that sort of thing either. So why?

 “You telegraphed me. Asked me to come, and then left. Why?”

The excuse she has designed and redesigned, practiced and perfected, comes pouring out of her lips as if it were the truth.

“I left for Hamish. I have established a lifestyle that has no room a child; bringing him with me would’ve unleashed all kinds of unimaginable danger on him, and it was a risk I was not willing take. Moriarty was at large; even if he wasn’t, I’ve still made plenty of enemies who’d pay a high price to see me in a coffin. Hamish needed protection that I could not afford him – he needed Mycroft.”

Sherlock grunts, apparently snubbed by her naming his brother and not him. She knows he would be, which is why she chooses to tell him that.

“You could’ve come back with –“

Irene scoffs, “Don’t be ridiculous, Sherlock. England was my death trap; your brother would’ve had me hanged at the first opportunity.”

Eyes widening, Sherlock starts to object, but Irene cuts him short.

“Oh how naïve can you be?” She waves her hand in exasperation. “Did you really think I would trust Mycroft to protect me? Why, because I am his nephew’s mother? That reason might stand had you not been married, because what am I now but an inconvenience to him?” 

This is an act she’s been waiting to deliver for over the last seven years, but she knows her reason can’t sound too justified to Sherlock. It should be uncomfortable for him to hear her say it, since the truth is often uncomfortable. If she appealed to his sentiment now, by suggesting that she had left their son in his care because she believed in his ability to protect him, it will only induce further suspicion in Sherlock’s already tumultuous mind.

She can only speak to the truths that he already knows, that of his brother’s disdain for her, and his eagerness to rid Sherlock and James of her influence. 

Her performance needs to be flawless, because above all else, it is fundamental that Sherlock walks away from her today with her ‘confession’ sunken into his mind. If all goes as well, it will plant there, fester and grow until he trusts her again. Judging from how unquestioningly Sherlock accepts what she’s just told him, she is hopeful that he will.

“I –“ His brows are knitted so tightly together that it looks like he is going to hurt himself. That Mycroft could harm Irene in that way had not crossed his mind. His brother, despite his aloofness (and arsehole moments), is a man who holds the value of family higher than the law. The minute Irene became linked to the Holmes bloodline, it was unquestionable to Sherlock that Mycroft would give her whatever she wanted, if only for the sake of the child. He hadn’t considered that Irene wasn’t really linked to them at all. Her only connection is through the life she and Sherlock had created, and the moment said life became disassociated from her, she was once again dispensable, since waiting in England was another woman ready to fill the role of mother and nurturer.

Sherlock tries to recall his brother’s attitude during their journey to Canada; he hadn’t shown any murderous inclinations. Then again, most people don’t until they are prompted by the exact moment of motivation.

Maybe, had he seen Sherlock with Irene, he would have realised it was far too dangerous to keep her alive, that she made Sherlock even more volatile than he was normally, and therefore was a catalyst which needed to be removed.

Irene was scared.

Of course she was scared.

Perhaps the explanation is really just that uncomplicated…

…

Though it’s probably not the one John wants to hear.

Standing on the kurb, John Watson is completely and utterly livid, so outraged is he that his face has gone completely white.

“Duty calls,” Irene throws him an amused half-smirk.

Rolling his eyes, because it’s just so typical of her to derive humour from another’s frustration, Sherlock replies sarcastically, “So it does.”

It should startle him how naturally he returns her smile.

But it doesn’t.

 

~~~

 

John is quite sure that at the end of today, there will be at least two bodies in the morgue. One is the disemboweled bugger from earlier, and the other one is either going to be Sherlock Holmes, Irene Adler, or himself. He is so angry right now that he’s seeing The Lord, because he’s fairly certain that he is currently in the throes of a rage-induced myocardial infarction. If, by the grace of the remaining justice left in this world, he doesn’t succumb to his impending heart attack, then he will definitely shoot at least one of them in the face with the gun he is carrying in his back pocket.

“Good morning, Dr. Watson!” Irene Adler greets him as she and Sherlock exit the tearoom. Why are they standing so close? Dear god, does he have his hand on the small of her back?! That bastard! His nerve! His absolute nerve!!!

“Ah John –“

The army doctor holds up a finger to silence the both of them. “Don’t speak.”

“John –“ GOD! What does the man not understand about the simple instruction ‘don’t speak’? And he’s supposed to be the genius? Can’t even take a bloody order!! Blokes like him wouldn’t last a day against the Afghans.

“No. Sherlock,” John lets out a strangled noise that sounds like a cross beneath a puff and a whine. “I have my gun and I swear to god, if you say another word, I will shoot you. Now, get in the cab.”

“John you’re being completely –“

“Dr. Watson –” No. No. Nope. She does not have a say right now. Irene Adler is the last the person whose voice he wants to hear, because - well all right he probably has some reserves about ending Sherlock’s life – but Irene Adler’s? None. None whatsoever.  

Do you see this? This right here? No? That’s right. Because this non-existent entity is the damn he gives about her right now.

John has a family, a wife and a daughter, whom he’d really not want to leave behind by going to jail for the likes of her.

Turning to his best friend (who is hovering dangerously close to being knocked down from that title and replaced by Lestrade), John repeats, “Have you lost your basic understanding of the English language? Get. In. The. Cab.”

Sparing Irene one last glance at which she nods, Sherlock climbs into the black vehicle parked by the side of the street.

Irene watches the detective disappear into the landau and makes for her own ride, but the doctor stands like a brick wall in front of her. In her heels, they just about see eye to eye. A normal person would shudder at the intensity of his hostility, but Irene is not moved in the least. In fact, she welcomes it. She reckon that the harder the doctors pushes him, tells him not to go near her, to trust her, the more the detective will do exactly that. It’s a normal human response, to desire what we are denied, but this neurosis, when presented in Sherlock Holmes, has tenfold its regular effect.

“You, stay away from him,” John grinds out.

“Are you _defending_ his _honour_? If you are, I’m sorry to inform you that that ship sailed a long time ago.”

“It’s not _his_ honour I’m worried about.”

The coachman holds out his hand for his mistress to take, but Irene pauses at the door of her carriage to flash John a wicked grin, “Don’t you worry your righteous little heart, Dr. Watson,” she pats his shoulder almost patronisingly. “I’ve always been more suited to be the other woman.”  

John fumes, remaining still out of pure self-control even though he really wants to slap her hand away. The irony of her statement almost renders him sick, because he’d seen the way Sherlock stared at her in the tearoom. No matter how hard the detective tries to school his emotions, John knows that when Irene Adler is in his presence Sherlock sees no other woman.  

John stands on the sidewalk for long while, until he feels that his emotions are adequately curtailed and until Adler’s carriage disappears down the road. Only then does he climb into the cab where Sherlock is waiting.

Actually, waiting would not be the correct term, since the detective has half a dozen photographs of dead women spread out on the cab seat and the minute John gets in, he immediately begins to talk at a furious speed.

John has just about had it.

Pulling back his fist, he socks the detective right in the nose, and then again in the gut.

 “No! No! Alright? You don’t get to _fucking_ do this. You don’t get to _rendezvous_ with – with – _her_ and then pretend nothing has happened by going on about a case!!!”

John settles opposite to his friend, and runs a hand through his hair, feeling incredibly justified as Sherlock groans in pain.

Knocking the roof of the landau, he barks, “Drive! Baker Street now!”  

“So Mycroft phoned you then,” Sherlock finally says after the most awkward and tension–filled silence since their post Reichenbach reunion stretched on for a good ten minutes.

John sits there like a rock staring at him, arms crossed, brows pinched. “Of course he bloody did! And Molly.”

“Molly?”

“Yes, Molly. Molly, who is worried about you because you never sent word, never went home to her, who, if you could still REMEMBER, is your _wife_!!”

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset, it’s not as if I’m meeting _your_ wife in secret!”

Damn. He shouldn’t have said that.

His outburst reveals two details, one: that he understands that this interaction with Irene is on some levels, inappropriate, and two: it is a secret.

Evidently, maintaining ‘decency’ with Irene will be a futile attempt. The only person who has ever been successful at curtailing the consulting detective has been John, but even his disappointment and fury cannot damper Sherlock’s want for The Woman.

Whatever he is showing on his face, Sherlock does not manage to withhold before it spooks John. The cloud of anger in which John is trapped vanishes instantly, replaced by something far more worrisome. There is a question on his mind that he wants to ask, but is afraid of the response he might get.

Instead, he inhales once and says carefully, “Sherlock, it isn’t right, and you know it. Promise me, promise you won’t do it again.”

When the man in question does not reply, John hangs his head with the defeated realisation that all is lost.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The words exotic, oriental, and other such ones have taken on a negative connotation in the modern English language, and are thus deemed politically incorrect and offensive. However, during the period which this story is set, these words are perfectly acceptable to use even for the most polite people. No offense is intended.
> 
> Once again, all my thanks goes to Francesca-Wayland for her awesome beta-ing and britpicking! :)


	8. VII

The man who died was a broker.

Once John retrieved Sherlock from the teahouse on Sloane, he had thought to bring the man straight home for a serious talking-to, but decided against it. A man had just been killed, and the detective’s talent was needed at the city morgue, where the body of the deceased was being examined.  From the victim’s personal effects, Sherlock discovered a signature tie-pin which quickly led to the confirmation of the dead man’s identity: Richard Nader, forty three, married, one's typical white-collared, upper class Londoner. Completely uninteresting if it weren’t for the fact that he was found gutted in a back alley.

Anderson gave the preliminary post-mortem, and promised to deliver the full report in a couple of day’s time. At Sherlock’s request, John re-examined the body and concurred with the findings. Even though Anderson had “warmed up” to the consulting detective these past few years after the Reichenbach incident, Sherlock still considered him somewhat of an idiot, not exactly incompetent, but not quite meeting Sherlock’s standard in professionals.

Lestrade, of course, was left to deal with the widow, after Sherlock “interrogated” her (which I advise you to read as a euphemism for driving her to tears). He wrote her off as completely irrelevant, when it became extremely clear after several exchanges that she knew nothing about her husband’s business, and that the only affairs she cared about were the ones her husband carried on with his mistresses. Yes, mistresses. Plural.

Now, that might strike some as suspicious. After all, it would not have been the first time that a jilted wife unleashed her pent-up anger on her cheating bastard of a husband and then took the matter too far. While poison is considered weapon of the feminine sex, Sherlock, after all these years in the trade, had seen his fair share of women fully capable of the most violent acts. It was not based on stereotypes of the fairer sex that the detective dismissed her guilt. Within minutes of meeting her, Sherlock had deduced from her hat pin and her purse that she could not have killed her husband at 3:00 am in the morning, because she was having a rendezvous of her own.

“You are left-handed, judging by your signature on the coroner’s forms. The wind is strong today and I noticed you were trying to adjust your hat when you came through the door, but you couldn’t find your hatpin, possibly because you thought it was on your left when it is in fact on your right. So, someone else put on your hat for you, yet you claim that you allowed all your staff some days off. So, one helped you get ready today but not yourself or your own maid. Earlier you said you were asleep at home at the time of the murder and had no idea what your husband was doing out in the middle of the night. Quite true that you had no idea what your husband was doing, not true that you were at home. The newspaper in your handbag has yesterday’s date, and the smudge on the hem of your skirt suggests that you’ve been outdoors somewhere wet, but London miraculously hasn’t see a drop of rain since Sunday. Now Mrs. Nader, if you would just give the constable here the name of your lover, so they can process the paperwork for your alibi, that would be most appreciated. After that, you may be on your way.”

The woman gaped at Sherlock the same way all the other people did when the detective tore them apart. Usually, John would be impressed, but not today.

 _Uhe-hypocrite-hm, h_ e coughed loudly.

The default expression on Sherlock’s face, a mixture of boredom and irritation reserved for tedious interrogations, transformed into a frown so long that the detective’s chin practically drooped to the table.

Lestrade, being none the wiser, shot both of them very strange looks. Puffing out a put-upon sigh, he stood up from his seat and opened the door for the distraught widow. “You don’t have to answer that question, Mrs. Nader. You may leave. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Still in a daze, Mrs. Nader stumbled into the hallway, before turning around and spitting viciously, “You ought to look into the list of harlots my husband finds worthy of his time, Inspector. I guarantee you one of them did him in.”

“Doubt it,” Sherlock said before Lestrade could answer.

Mrs. Nader scowled, but stomped off without another word.

When the woman was out of earshot, Lestrade voiced his displeasure at his consultants.

“Sherlock, what in the world was all that about? We barely got anything got of her! Where were you this morning, and what the bloody hell happened to your nose?!”  

Ignoring Lestrade’s questions, Sherlock rose from his seat and reached for his coat. John, equally wordless, did the same.

“Oi!” The inspector exclaimed, becoming increasingly frustrated.

“More people are going to die, Inspector, of that much I am certain. I suggest you accompany us back to Baker Street. There is much I wish to discuss with you.”

Lestrade watched curiously as Sherlock withdrew an old folder from the inside of his coat and passed it to him.

Document in hand, the policeman had to swallow down the air forcing out from his lungs by the nasty ice that suddenly seized the columns of his ribs. For the briefest of seconds, his vision blurred, the ground beneath his feet gave like a badly sprung mattress, and he thought - _oh god_ – he was having a _stroke_.

But then the fractals of colours and images clicked into place, and the gory memories he’d rather forget burned through layers of his conscience.

 _Lads, our city is no longer safe._ It was the 10th of September, 1888 when Sir Melville Macnaghten, the Assistant Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police Service and Head of the Criminal Investigation Department, called in an emergency meeting.

Officially, Inspector Gregory Lestrade was not assigned to the Ripper case, but he was called upon after Annie Chapman’s murder because of his connections to one Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, for the two and a half months that The Ripper had reigned Whitechapel with fear and blood, the genius detective was nowhere to be found in the British Isles. No help were to be had from John Watson either, though for an entirely justified reason. During those terrifying weeks, he was pre-occupied by his fatherly duties to his one year daughter, who had come down with a bad case of measles. It was by John that the Met was regretfully informed that Sherlock had an important consultation in the Ottoman Empire, and would not be returning any time in the foreseeable future.

 _Ottoman Empire, my arse,_ thought Lestrade when Sherlock brought James home a year later. To this day, he couldn’t believe the reason that the great Sherlock Holmes had missed one of the most horrific sequential killings(1) in English history was because he was holed up somewhere becoming a _father_.

The one incident when London needed her detective the most, he was not there, and if there were any doubt whether the city depended on him, the terrible weeks of his absence dismissed such scepticism.

Whitechapel was not within Lestrade’s jurisdiction. Without Sherlock he had no say in the case, and was resigned to watch his peers run in circles, chasing ghosts and going nowhere. Yet, the frustration of being side-lined by bureaucratic red tapes was nothing compared to the strain placed on his principle knowing that this case was far more elaborate than it seemed, but that he was forbidden to breathe a word of it to anyone.

Mycroft had found him the morning of 29th of September, when the taunting “Dear Boss” letter, allegedly written by the killer, was forwarded to the Metropolitan Police by the Central News Agency. It was from this letter that the term “Jack the Ripper” was initially coined. As did so many others, Lestrade had thought the note was probably a hoax, but when the elder Holmes showed up at the Yard, he realized the water was so much deeper than they had assumed.

_“Inspector, while my brother has on multiples occasions in the past helped the department with the most demanding crimes, for various reasons I am unable to disclose at the moment, I would prefer if you do not attempt to employ his methods for this particular case. When he returns, you are not to call on his expertise.”_

The grimace of a smile Mycroft gave him made it perfectly clear that Lestrade had no other choice but to comply with his orders. It was then that he understood why he wasn’t put on the task force even though he was one of the most seasoned inspectors of the Yard. Somehow, this was Mycroft’s attempt to protect his little brother, a weird display of the “concern” that the elder Holmes once briefly mentioned.

_“Will you at least tell me what this is about?!”_

_“I’m afraid that is strictly classified, Inspector.”_

Lestrade hated classified information, because it always meant that people, who would otherwise be spared, would die simply because the relevant facts had not been deemed necessary to be disclosed to them. Barely twenty-four hours after the talk with Mycroft, Catherine Eddowes and Elizabeth Stride were found dead, and Lestrade blamed Mycroft for it (but mostly himself).

_“Goddamn it, Holmes! Those women didn’t have to die! Never mind what Sherlock thinks, but I’m not a complete idiot. You could’ve trusted me, and I could’ve helped you.”_

He was wrong of course.

 _“Believe me, Gregory, when I say that you could not have.”_ Nothing they knew could’ve saved Eddowes and Stride. Or any of the others for that matter.

From the inside of his heavy overcoat, Mycroft pulled out a box of fine cigarettes, which he offered to the policeman. Begrudgingly, Lestrade accepted the gesture of consolidation, telling himself that he could spare one for the occasion, even if it meant deviating from his quitting regime. Together, the two of them had stood on the wet sidewalk across from the morgue and smoked in each other’s company, one angry, another aloof.

September concluded with a total of four victims, and with their bodies still cooling, the new month began with a mystery of its own. A headless torso of a woman was discovered in the basement of the New Metropolitan Police Headquarters being built in Whitehall. The debate over whether this murder bore connection to Jack the Ripper carried on for weeks. The killings caught the attention of the MPs, the Lords, the Queen, and just about anyone who had eyes and ears and access to gossip. Jack the Ripper was the hottest topic for the whole of October, until Mary Kelly’s brutal murder sobered the excitement and chilled the heat of discussion like the first breath of winter blowing across the Thames. The depravity of what was done to her body reminded London, which had been distracted by the drama of it all, that a devilish monster still roamed free in its streets.

Lestrade couldn’t sleep a wink that night. The whiskey had done nothing to drown the demons that haunted those who saw the mutilated corpse of the victim. For weeks beforehand, he had wondered what secrets Mycroft Holmes kept from him, but after witnessing what was left of Mary Kelly, Lestrade was sure that whatever it was, he didn’t want to know.   

The consecutive slew of murders saw a surge in activity at the Yard. Thousands were interviewed, hundreds were investigated, and eighty were detained. Lestrade could testify on his honour the significant diligence and manpower put forth to catch the Ripper; he’d never seen his colleagues work quite so hard or log in so many extra hours. Even so, the investigation led nowhere. Abysmal clues, dead ends, and contradictory testimony made everyone’s job hell. There were a rare few who held fast, pushed on, but ultimately, the case wore through even the toughest of police convictions.

All the while, Lestrade sat back and watched the police scrambling to make sense of these traumatic murders. He hated himself for every second that he remained silent and allowed their efforts to run wasted. Even when he thought he would stand up to say something, he realized just what a tight corner Mycroft had forced him into. He knew that the police were searching in the wrong direction, but he had no idea of which was the _right_ direction, so he couldn’t have helped even if he tried.

Lestrade always knew that it wasn’t over. Though, if he had known the cause of Sherlock finally investing himself in this case, he would have saved a moment to appreciate the irony. How apt that the same woman who had diverged the detective’s attention away from his city during the initial investigation would be the one to request the re-examination of this cold-case eight years later.

 

~~~

 

Annabel knew, without a doubt, that this was about to be the best or worst decision she had ever made in her young, short life.

          _Personal Journal of Captain John H. Watson, MD – 1888._

Her father’s distinct print lined the creamy pages of a well-used journal: creases in the spine, discolouration around the edges of the leather binding. For a man of medicine, John did not possess the typical physician’s scrawl. The pages smelled of ink and a bit of mould, and it felt like history in her hands.  Annabel dared not breathe. At just shy of nine years old, with a vocabulary ahead of her years, it wasn’t very difficult for her to quickly sift through the passages.

As soon as her father had left for the crime scene, Annabel had made her move. While her mother did the morning dishes, seeming somehow more distracted than usual, Annabel took her chance. For the past few days she had prowled around her father’s den, a cosy little room in the east of the house where he did most of his writing. The sunlight from the window always fell across the oak bookshelf, containing a modest collection of some of his favourite authors and a couple of his own work - some published, most not.

John was private in that way.

Burdened with the task of identifying the mystery woman, Annabel knew she would not find answers in her father’s books. If John wrote about the woman in James’s photograph, it would be in his journal, the original manuscript of all his writings.

Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he was also a soldier; his penmanship revealed a penchant for order and an adherence to discipline.  His t’s were always crossed, and i’s always dotted, but the right upstroke on his W’s swung into a flourish curl, and the tail on his f’s whipped out like the edge of a blade. John Watson was not a boring man, nor a man without style. Over the course of his acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes, the doctor had gone through several thick volumes, documenting the adventures he shared with his dearest friend. His journals, much to his daughter’s delight, were labelled by date and year.

The date on the W file James had found had indicated April 25th, 1888. Sure enough, under 27th of April, Annabel discovered the companion story to Sherlock’s case record.

              _April 27th, 1888_

_By the impending Official Secrets Act2, I shall be forbidden from publishing the details surrounding Sherlock’s latest case, but since the scrutiny of public interest shall not touch these pages, I see no harm in recording the series of events which threatened welfare of the empire.  In short, our great nation was nearly brought to its knees by one person - Irene Adler._

Aside from a huge ink spot, that was the extent of the entry. It was almost as if her father had paused in his process and contemplated whether or not he should carry on. The text was written in a deep blue, but beneath it, an addendum was added in at a later time in black. _See Oct 4th._

And see Oct 4th Annabel did. Oh this was so exciting! This subterfuge sneaking behind her parents’ back - it was akin to espionage. Annabel recognized that in part this may be infringing on certain individuals’ privacies, but she placated herself by arguing that she’d only be sharing what she knew with James, and the secrets would stay between the two of them. As she turned the page gently with her finger, Annabel felt as if she were pulling at the thread end of a dangled ball of twine. It would seem that the story her father had been initially hesitant to tell was finally given its due half a year later, but the account John relayed produced as many questions as it answered.

          _October 4th, 1888_

_To Sherlock Holmes she is always The Woman -_

In hindsight, that sentence in itself should be foreshadow enough for what she was about to discover.

  _– I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position…._

            _…And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory._

The tale her father told was long and complicated, and between the twists and turns, Annabel grew increasingly alarmed at the content, though she didn’t always understand quite what was happening. She thought of the woman in the photograph with the mysterious smile, and like her father, could not believe that someone had existed who was so important to the detective. Inside her chest, Annabel’s heart palpitated uncomfortably.

      _…. a lovely woman, with a face that a man could die for. She was, strangely enough, a reflection of him – another version of himself moulded into a woman’s body….But I couldn’t understand it, how this was even happening. She held out her hand, palm up, smiling expectantly at him as if she knew all his secrets. And maybe she did. Oh look at the man, he was more than impressed – he was smitten(2)._

Smitten – Annabel grimaced. Sure, she knew the technical definition of the word, but under the context, she felt that her grasp was not firm enough on the connotations of the word or the psychology of the man to whom the word was applied to truly say that she understood what her father had meant.

Sherlock Holmes had been as integral a part of her life as either of her parents. Her memory of him was full of both fondness and reverence. Her father’s relationship with his sister, her aunt Harriet, was strained at best, so Sherlock had fulfilled the role of both uncle and godfather with a level of sensitivity exceeding all expectations.

Yes, Annabel adored Sherlock, as much as her girlish optimism could allow. She saw only his goodness, his kindness, and she believed wholeheartedly that the one she so affectionately called Uncle Sherlock was the best man second only to her own Pa. To her, Sherlock was many things – brilliant, untouchable, and unintentionally hilarious, but smitten?

Smitten was Inspector Lestrade’s oldest daughter with her sweetheart. Smitten was the hundreds of older girls sighing over Queen Victoria’s grandson – and second in line – Prince George. Smitten was… silly, undignified and irrational, and therefore nothing that the Great Sherlock Holmes could ever be.    

Licking her index finger, she flipped the page and read on. With every word, Annabel felt as though her heart could punch through her chest, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. Curiosity killed the cat, but wasn’t satisfaction supposed to bring it back?

            _……True to her own premonitions, she did not last six months. Mycroft appeared late yesterday afternoon, bearing news of the Adler woman’s fate. Upon hearing it, I was immensely glad that my dear friend was not present for this announcement._

_She’s dead. Executed by a band of rebels from Karachi, whose secret agendas she must have revealed when the contents of her box were surrendered to the British government. I do not know yet what to tell Sherlock when he returns, nor do I know for certain if sparing him the truth would be the kindest. Even though they parted under ill terms, she affected him, in ways none of us could have expected. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the title of The Woman._

_Whether that is loathing or a salute… I suppose we’ll never know._

“The Woman.” Annabel murmured, pressing the journal to her chest. “The one woman who mattered.” She could hear her father speaking those lines, and his imaginary voice rang in her ears like words of caution, warning her to pry no more.

Because yes, there was more.

Beneath the last paragraph of the Oct 4th entry was yet another post-script addendum. See August 31st, 1889.  

Dear God, did she dare?

_What am I saying? I’m a Watson; of course I dare!_

The volume marked 1889 was sitting directly at eye level. Plucking it from the shelf, Annabel wasted no time getting to the page she desired. One can’t expect her to leave a story half-finished, can they?

            _August 31st, 1889_

_I had suspected this for months, but every false logic I had had convinced me it could not be so. I woke this morning by a call from Mycroft confirming all my worst fears, that my dear friend had committed a terrible, irrevocable mistake. I was right, because after a month-long journey to Toronto, Sherlock returned home today carrying the consequence of his actions: a child –_

Gasping aloud, Annabel slapped the journal shut, but the damage was done. She had already learned too much to stop the pieces from clicking into place, like chips from a puzzle. She willed herself to forget what she had read, to unlearn what she had learned, but she could not. Her father had not addressed the identity of the child or the mother, but there was no need for such clarifications. It was obvious to her that James was the infant – he was born late July was that very year – and as for his mother, if the series of entries in John’s journal was any evidence on which to base conclusions, then she could not be anyone but Irene Adler.

Downstairs, the telephone rang.

Startled, Annabel bounced up, quickly stuffing the journals back into their slots on the bookshelf, and bolted from her father’s study. She decided right then that she had made a terrible mistake, because now that she knew, she must decide on how to proceed. She thought of James, his curiosity, and his eager anticipation, and what this revelation would mean to him. While she dealt with this crisis of significant magnitude, James was waiting for her to deliver information to fuel their little detective game, but this wasn’t a game anymore. Annabel shuddered to think what would happen if someone was to inform her that her own mother wasn’t who she thought she was; how terrifying it would be to have her touchstones taken away from her. The last thing she wished was to injure James unnecessarily. He was younger than her, and so she felt quite protective of him. Their fathers were not brothers in blood, but they were in bond, and so Annabel and James were effectively cousins, family.

But Irene Adler…

Annabel couldn’t understand how a supposedly dead woman could be James’s mother, and she didn’t know whether said woman was still alive or if she had actually died after his birth… that could explain why she wasn’t in James’s life…

Or...maybe she had not want him.

Abandonment or death, neither was good news as far as Annabel was concerned. Poor James would be devastated. Sighing, the girl stood up from the floor, and returned the journals to their previous positions. She knew John’s journal held more answers to her questions, but she could not read them today. There was already too much to think about, and she’d rather sleep on it for awhile and contemplate what she should do. One thing was clear: she would not tell James of what she had discovered, not yet, not when she could barely make sense of it herself.

Annabel decided that it was best to learn more about Irene Adler before she revealed the truth to her friend. She thought that there was no rush; they had plenty of time.

But she was wrong.

 

~~~

 

Mrs Hudson read The Gazette religiously. If one were to search for a daily copy, one was sure to find it within her immediate vicinity.

It just so happened that that day’s edition bore the picture of Lord Gibbs, Baron of Aldenham, and his lovely American fiancée, Katherine Wolfe. Sally, who was still upset over what she had witnessed the previous night and wished to confirm that it was actually Katherine she saw in the garden, sought an opportunity to ask Mrs Hudson for her copy, but unfathomably the housekeeper had been in a foul mood all morning. For someone who had always been so chatty during breakfast, she hardly spoke a word. Eventually, Sally had to sneak out and buy a copy off a street boy.

As she handed her hard-earned money over to the grubby little hands, Sally questioned her sanity. Just how desperate was she? God, this was none of her business. _But Molly, think about Molly_ , her inner voice of justice reminded her.

Unrolling the paper, Sally gazed long and hard at the face of the radiant woman, hanging off the arm of the old baron, and felt slightly more justified of her actions.  

Oh yes, it was definitely _her_.

Over the course of the last few hours, Sally had also made several decisions of her own. For one, she was going to hold off exposing Sherlock for the time-being, because she was starting her own private investigation into this Katherine Wolfe aka ‘Irene’ woman. Once she gathered real evidence of Sherlock’s guilt, then she’ll nail him with it.  

Sherlock was too clever for his own good, and his had no reservations against manipulation when it suited him. If Sally was going to get justice, she was going to have to play his game. Proper evidence couldn't be ignored. Hurrumphing angrily, she tucked the paper under the band of her apron and went off to do work.

Self-appointed detective or not, she still had to keep up the duties of her employment. There were sheets to be washed and adjustments to be made to James’s trousers. By god, that boy grew fast. He was going to turn into a 6-foot praying mantis just like his father in no time. Sally could feel it.

Speaking of the devil…

“Sally, where’s Father? And Mummy?”

Still in his striped pyjamas, the boy hopped down the stairs. It was nearly ten o’clock, and he just rose out of bed! That was completely ridiculous! The Holmeses really knew how to spoil a child. James was bound to turn into a menace or a slouch if they didn’t bother to check him soon.  

“Missus is upstairs, working. Don’t you go bothering her now,” replied Sally, picking up her duster and heading into the den.

“Working? Working on what?”

“Working on what - good gracious - you are just like your father, boy, you know that?  Who do you think runs this house, manages the books, and makes sure you lot are fed?”

“Father is a detective -”

“Yes, who takes cases based on how interesting he finds them, not how much it pays. Your family has old money and investments, portions of which your Daddy owe and to which he never bothers to tend. So thank God that your Mummy knows what she’s doing or else the only wheels turning around this place would be the ones in your Daddy’s head.”

“But we were supposed to go to the countryside today with Annabel and Mrs Watson,” grumbled James as he trailed after the woman like a puppy. “Mummy promised we’d head down to the river and I could collect samples of _Sagittaria latifolia_.”

Sally rolled her eyes at the boy’s antics, brushing the duster along the top of the fireplace as she explained, “Well the botany excursion will have to wait. The Missuses have decided that a day-in will do you children some good.”

James pouted and huffed loudly, crossing his arms in displeasure.

“You know, Master James, you should enjoy the freedom while you can. You are seven now; in a few years you’ll be shipped to some posh public school like all the other little lordlings, and then you’ll have to answer to rules and tutors, and _rules_ ,” Sally repeated with a wide, blithe grin at the little boy staring up at her, worry brewing in those stormy blue eyes beneath dark, furrowed brows.  

“Father wouldn’t,” James objected, but the little tremor in his voice betrayed his lack of conviction.

“You are forgetting that you have an uncle and a grandmother who would not sit idly by and let your Daddy indulge you ‘till the end of time.”  

“But Annabel -”

“- Is a girl. Girls from well-to-do families don’t go to school; they have governesses. Speaking of which, I did hear Mr Watson mention something like that to your Mummy the other day. About time the Watsons pulled the reins on her too.”

James flopped down into an armchair, sliding his bum forward and curling up as if his spine were made of jelly. His small legs dangled off the edge, bare feet kicking at air in an irritated fashion. Clearly, the idea of being sent away and subjected to authority did not settle well in his clever little brain.

Glancing down at that long face and pouting mouth, Sally snickered to herself, but decided she’d take pity on the boy and stop the teasing.

“Oh, Jamesie. It won’t be so bad. You still have plenty of time to play all you want,” Sally consoled, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and inadvertently crushing the newspaper she had tucked against her waist. The crisp crunch drew James’s attention, and he turned to the source of the sound. Covered by Sally’s white apron, he could only see half of the face of the woman on the front page, but even so, he recognised it immediately.

The Nero Wolfe who would one day take New York by storm is famous for many eccentric qualities: his sedentary lifestyle (a stark contrast against his youthful years during which he was athletic, fit, and prone to all sorts of havoc and later...spywork), his disapproval of women (which has less to do with misogyny than his complicated experiences with the many, many femme fatales in his life), his acuity, and his practiced stoicism. As Archie Goodwin once noted, " _He shook his head, moving it a full half-inch right and left, which was for him a frenzy of negation_."

But I can tell you now that as in the case of his other qualities, the control James has over his visible reaction is not innate.

Certainly, Miss. Donovan recalled how visibly shaken he was that particular morning: “The boy wore his heart on his sleeve. One hardly needed to be Sherlock Holmes to read him,” Sally lamented to me during our interview, remembering in detail how James had visibly gasped, his pale face dropping two shades.

Sally had released him then, frowning in confusion. The boy must’ve noticed how he gave himself away, because he immediately tried to act as though nothing was wrong, which only made Sally even more curious.

“James,” she unfolded the newsprint, thinking perhaps Sherlock’s son knew something, saw something that he shouldn’t have - just like herself. Pointing to the woman on the front page, she implored, “Do you know her?”

“No,” he shook his head resolutely, but Sally wasn’t fooled.  

“James, you recognise her, don’t you?” Sally knelt down in front of the child, whose pallor proved he was visibly spooked. But why? How did he know Katherine Wolfe? Did he even know Katherine Wolfe, or did he know Irene?  Sally reached for his small hands, which were cold and clammy within her larger warm ones. “If you know something about this woman or...or your father, you can tell me. You won’t get into trouble.”

James said nothing and kept his head down. He had guilt written all over him, and Sally was more sure than ever that Sherlock Holmes had done something wrong. James wasn’t usually like this; if he were the one in trouble, his ‘charming innocence’ act would be in full swing. He wouldn’t look so scared that he couldn’t even meet Sally’s eyes.

“Jamesie, listen to me. This is important. This woman, she could be dangerous. For the good of this family, if I were you, I would not keep anything I know a secret.”  

“I - I only - I was going to put it back; we just wanted to have a bit of fun,” the boy sniffled, growing more and more distressed as he heard the seriousness in Sally’s tone. “She was supposed to be dead anyway!”

The maid shook her head, trying to get a sense of what the boy spewed out in near-hysteria. Somehow James wasn’t the only one who knew; Sally could hazard a guess as to whom the other party was, but the more pressing matter was what he had said at the end. The woman was supposed to be dead - now that opened up a whole new concept to be explored.

“What do you mean, dead?”

“That’s what Father’s file said. Deceased. D-does that mean she’s still alive?”

Sally ignored the question, too pre-occupied with the implications. “Your Daddy has a client file on Katherine Wolfe?”

A part of her felt a bit of hope. People came to the detective from all over, and the richer they were, the more scandalous the reason for their visit. If Katherine were a client, then it wouldn’t be so odd that she and Sherlock were acquainted or that she’d want to keep said acquaintance a secret.

“I was just trying to figure out who she was,” James mumbled, shrugging. He reached into the pocket of his pyjama and carefully took out a small rectangular photograph. He smoothed it on his lap, running his thin fingers across the wrinkled edges like a girl would caress her most beloved doll. “The file never told a name. It just said The Woman, with a capital T.”

As soon as the words left the boy’s mouth, the confidence that had just started to balloon within Sally deflated immediately. She placed the newspaper and the photo side by side; indeed, it was the same person. Katherine was older now, her eyes sharper, and that pretty face more...inscrutable, but the person in the picture was undeniably her. In the photo, she couldn’t have been more than late-twenties, and she seemed almost nice, like she could have been an amicable person, someone Sally wouldn’t have minded knowing.

This woman was anyone but who she claimed she was. No American heiress from a rich family would have a client file in Sherlock’s office, locked inside his desk, with a clipping of her portrait and no name to go along. If the case was not important enough to note a name, then Sherlock wouldn’t have bothered locking it up. Thus, her lack of identification could only signify one thing: that she was very important, so important that Sherlock could not possibly delete her from his ‘mind palace’, and would have no need to label her like the rest.

If Sherlock Holmes were any other man, the first conclusion that came to Sally’s mind would be that Irene was some previous lover. Except, this was Sherlock. Half the days, Sally was willing to believe that he was more attracted to _Watson_ than to women.

Sally was hired after James was born, because Mrs Holmes became too preoccupied with her new baby to do housework and Mrs Hudson was getting on in years. All the sheets and laundry in the house were Sally’s responsibility, and so other than the husband and wife, there was no other person who was more in tuned with what went on in the Holmes master bedroom. Let’s just say for a man in his prime years and a woman so beautiful, their sheets were too often clean. If it weren’t for James’s existence, Sally doubted they even had...relations, except they obviously did, or else they couldn’t have produced a son. Maybe that was the reason for the low level of intimate activities: now that Sherlock sired an heir for his family line, he saw his duties were fulfilled. The  mandid repeat on multiple occasions that he was just a brain and that everything corporal was just transport…

_“Irene wait.”_

Sally could never forget the way Holmes spoke the woman’s name as he reached out to pull her back to him. She was not a client. Not _just_ a client.

“Where is this file now?”

“In Father’s study, in his drawer,” James replied, a little hesitantly. When Sally narrowed her eyes, he sighed and confessed in full, “Fiiine…locked drawer, but you promised I wasn’t going to get into trouble if I told you! I’m holding you to your word!”

And suddenly, James paused as something clicked for him. He sat up straight, drawing to his full height. He yanked the newspaper from Sally’s hand and scanned down the front page. For a seven year old, he was an exceptional reader. Looking up, it was his turn to narrow his eyes in suspicion.

“Why are you interested in this case? Nevermind that she is alive, but why would _you_ be interested in Katherine Wolfe?” He glanced down at the article again. “You could’ve only met her yesterday at the ball, since it says right here that Miss Wolfe arrived in London a week ago. Sally, what did you see last night?”   

Blushing, Sally cursed the world for producing such a perceptive little devil. “I-”

 _Ding-ding!_ The front door bell rang. _Right on time too,_ thought Sally, getting up, “That ought to be Mrs Watson and Miss Annabel.”

“Sally, wait,” James stopped her, pulling on her sleeve. “Don’t tell Father or Mummy. Can we just keep this between us for now? And Annabel too.”

When Sally looked sceptical, James made her an offer, “You always said you wanted to be a detective; we can share our case with you. If you tell Father, there wouldn’t be a case.”

“What case?”

“This Katherine Wolfe, a woman supposedly dead, alive and back in London? You think she’s dangerous. I concur. If she’s a criminal, then she needs to be stopped. You get to prove yourself, and I get to have fun.”

 _Christ, what seven-year-old uses the word ‘concur’? And what seven-year-old thinks catching criminals is fun?_ But damn, the little devil certainly knew how to make a compelling argument.

“Fine, but if I think that there’s even a slightest chance of harm coming to you or Annabel, I’m going to your Mum.”

James hopped onto the armchair, standing so that he was at eye level with Sally. Sticking out his hand, he puffed out his chest and spoke in a comically solemn manner, “Deal. Welcome to the investigation... _Sergeant_ Donovan.”

 

~~~

 

Sometimes I wonder, that when Henry Knight reappeared on the front steps of Baker Street, wearing that same air of awkward nervousness he had when he first came to the detective and his doctor nearly a decade ago, if anyone had remembered the saying about coincidences.

_When it comes to murder, coincidences are scarce, for the universe is rarely so lazy._

“Can I help you, sir?” Sally was the one who greeted him at the door.

“My name is Henry Knight. I’m here to see Sherlock Holmes.”

 _Course you are. Why else would you be here?_  “Sorry, he’s not in. Can I take a message?”

“Ah, it’s a bit hard to explain. Do you mind if I come wait inside? I am an old client of Mr. Holmes. Erm..The Hound of Baskerville?”

“Oh!” Sally exclaimed in surprise. “Yes, I think I read that one. Terribly sorry about your father. Please, come in, I’m sure Mrs Holmes wouldn’t mind.”

“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Mrs Holmes. The last time I was here, she was away in the country manor, with child,” said Henry pleasantly. “That was in the spring of ‘89. How the time flies!”

“It does indeed, sir,” replied Sally absentmindedly. Never the one for small talk, she wasn’t really listening.

Apparently, between Sally answering the door and her leading Mr Knight to the drawing room, James had the chance to change out of his pyjamas and into something more presentable. Or… maybe it was because Molly had finally put her foot down and demanded that he get dressed, given that the boy was now stomping into the room with his Mummy in tow.

“This is Mr Henry Knight, madam, an old client of Mr. Holmes,” Sally introduced.

Mr Knight, who despite his nervous disposition had matured into a well-to-do man, upon seeing the woman of the house, dipped his head in a courteous bow. “Mrs Holmes, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

According to Mr. Knight - or Henry as he insisted I call him - Mrs Sherlock Holmes was the embodiment of English virtue, humble grace, and womanliness. I am inclined to believe this evaluation of character, because I have yet to meet anyone who had anything other than kind words to say about the detective’s young wife. She was held in the highest regard by anyone who met her, especially Sally, as she enunciated on numerous occasions.  

“The pleasure is mine. Please, sit,” gestured Molly at the armchair across from her own. “This is my son, James.”

“Hello sir,” greeted the boy with a grimace, as if the simple act of being polite left a bad taste in his mouth. Molly frowned at him, and he lowered his head, visibly chastised.

“You have a remarkable resemblance to your father, young man. Except your eyes…” Henry glanced at Molly.  

“Yes, not sure where he gets it from…” Molly agreed, and Sally was surprised to note that she appeared usually forlorn, but not more surprised that someone had said James didn’t inherit his father’s eyes. Everyone always went on and on about how much his eyes were like Sherlock’s; it never occurred to Sally that it wasn’t true…   

“Sally, take James.” Turning to her guest, Molly smiled, “May I offer you a cup of tea? I’m afraid Sherlock won’t return for a while, but I can take a message for you if you’d like.”

As Sally led James away, she overheard Henry say, “It’s just… well, my ancestral Baskerville home, I sold it, after my father’s murder was put to bed. I couldn’t… bear living there after everything. The patron that Baskerville now belongs to has since transformed it into an institution of sorts...”

And that was the last Sally saw of Henry Knight for a long time. When she returned with the tea Molly had ordered, Henry was already gone. He had explained that he was only in town for short period, and that his schedule was tight. Thus, it would be another three months before the reason for his visit was revealed.

And certainly, when Mr. Knight did return, Sherlock would have been in a much darker place: manic, unstable, and tortured by the case that remains unsolved and his loss of faith in Irene, whose intentions, as he would finally see, had always been more venomous than he wanted to believe.

In a sense, Henry had returned the unintended act of kindness that Sherlock had shown him in the misty forest of Dewer’s Hollow. With his oblivious ways, he would offer Sherlock clarity in his hour of darkness, much like that night many years ago when the detective had shaken the younger man by the shoulders and saved him from himself.

So what is Baskerville’s secret? The answer to that is as complicated as this case itself, and telling it now would be much too premature. The story must be revealed a layer at a time. Mr Knight had no idea, until I explained to him the truth behind The Baskerville Institution, of his own role in resolving the mystery of The Ripper, and neither did he know how going down to Baskerville again had changed the lives of so many.

What I am trying to say – in a roundabout fashion – is that although they had absolutely no way of knowing this, Sherlock and John missed a key opportunity, a slip which would cost both of them dearly.

It was no one's fault that things turned out the way they did. How were they to know that Henry’s inquiries would have any relation with The Ripper? How were they to know that they had come inches to possessing the lead that would set this whole investigation in an enlightened direction, only to allow it to pass them by?

It was a detail, a minor, _minor_ detail, but as they say, the devil is the in details.

 

~~~

 

At a quarter past noon, the Watsons arrived. True to her promise to herself, Annabel said not a word about Irene Adler. And true to his pact with Sally, James shared what he and the maid had discussed with his friend. Although it felt kind of silly to Sally that she was partaking in a child’s game of detection when she was a grown woman, she was willing to sacrifice a bit of her pride if it meant that there would be two children blocking the other’s scrutiny while she did _real_ investigative work. The children would snoop of course, and if ever they got caught, Sally would only been seen as the exasperated adult chaperon. So in fact the arrangement is quite perfect for all parties.

The day went by without too much commotion, though for some odd reason, Mrs Hudson was _still_ in a bad mood, and Mary seemed like the only person who was in on the secret. More than once, Sally caught the two of them mumbling in hushed voices in the kitchen and pretending nothing was wrong when she approached them.

By sundown, the front door swung open and three voices could be heard arguing as they stepped through: John, Sherlock, and oh what a surprise, Inspector Lestrade.

“Sherlock. Sherlock. _Sher_ -” Lestrade tried to get a word in while Sherlock, without a doubt, refused to hear it.  

Sally rolled her eyes as she set the dinner table.

“All I’m saying is that we should at least warn the other stations. Let them be on the look out in case the Rip - the killer decides to strike again.” Lestrade managed to catch his mistake in time. Personally, he was still not completely convinced that Jack the Ripper was really back, but it would be wise to keep things quiet, lest it cause a panic in the city.

“God, I’m starving!” Exclaimed Sherlock. “Lestrade, stay for dinner. We’ll discuss this afterwards.”

_Well, time to get an extra set of cutlery._

“Guess I’ll be eating downstairs today,” Sally grumbled under her breath. On a normal day, both Mrs Hudson and herself joined the Holmeses during their meals, mostly due to Molly’s graciousness and Sherlock’s sheer disregard for decorum. Mycroft, on the off-chance that he dropped by during suppertime, always sniffed judgmentally at his younger brother’s arrangements. He and Sherlock grew up in a different environment, in a large home with huge dinning halls and servants standing on guard whilst the masters ate.

Obviously, things were a bit different at Baker Street. Even when the Watsons stayed for dinner, which was quite often given John and Sherlock’s erratic activities, the large table could accommodate eight individuals suitably. However, with the addition of Lestrade, Sally knew she would not be joining the family tonight. There was no room for a ninth person, and Mrs Hudson, though technically ‘staff’, far outranked her in seniority and importance.

Speaking of Mrs Hudson…

Sally watched the housekeeper place the roasted beef and Yorkshire pudding side by side on the far end of the table, and frowned in befuddlement. It was strange, since Yorkshire pudding was Sherlock’s favourite and usually placed right in front of him to encourage the man to eat something.

You’d think that after Sherlock declared that he had the desire to consume _actual_ substance, Mrs Hudson, who assumed the role of second mother to the man, would be rushing to shove food down his throat at the first opportunity. Yet here she was, purposely putting his favourite dish out of his reach. It reminded Sally of something her own mother used to do, when she had been particularly naughty.

 _Hmm,_ Sally glanced up at the three men. When Sherlock was on a case, it was considered a good day if he had a nibble of biscuits with his tea. The man practically forgot about his other organs - stomach mostly - when his massive (egotistical) brain took over his essential functions. Right now he was clearly on a case, and yet he said he was starving?

“You can’t be starving,” John huffed, crossing his arms. “You had tea and biscuits -”

One warning glare from his best friend silenced the doctor. Sally had never seen the detective whip around so fast. The room was suddenly deathly quiet, and the lot of them stood there awkwardly, not a single one knowing what to do as Holmes and Watson duelled with the intensity of their reciprocating glare.

_What a couple of drama queens, but good Lord, if looks could kill…._

Sherlock would be dead. Though nearly half a foot shorter, John’s presence seemed to tower over his friend. Sally got the impression that the doctor was trying very hard to contain within himself something very nasty. He had a pinched look on his face and a vague half-smile that could almost be called a smirk. Sally winced despite herself. The last time that smile made an appearance, Sherlock had broken his nose on John’s fist. Of course, Sally had been secretly amused, because the posh detective had looked ridiculous for days, but just thinking about the punch made her own nose twinge with phantom pain.

Abruptly, the bedroom door on the top floor was shoved open, slamming loudly against the wall, and laughter could be heard chasing footsteps as the two rascals pounded down the stairs. Behind them, the quieter voices and footfalls of their mothers followed.  

At the sight of their families, Watson and Holmes dropped their confrontational stance, but the passive-aggressive tension between them remained dangerously tangible. Turning around, Sherlock ignored the questioning stares of Sally and Greg, and reached for a Yorkshire pudding.  

“Filthy!” Mrs Hudson scolded hotly, slapping his hand away from her perfect pastries. “Where are Earth have you been, boy? You’re in still last night’s tuxedo! You can’t sit down at the table like this.”

Offended, Sherlock opened his mouth to argue, but the old housekeeper was having none of it. Grumbling and huffing, Mrs Hudson shooed him towards the door.

Lestrade cleared his throat, shuffling from foot to foot. Leaning over to Sally, he muttered, “So, am I missing something? Those two have been acting odd all afternoon.”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Inspector,” said Sally, shaking her head, as the dining room flooded with people and cacophony.

“Sherlock, you’re back. What did Mycroft -” “Father, guess what - hey, you can’t sit there, Bell; I want to sit there!” “Too bad, Mish. Don’t be such a baby!” “Oh hello there Inspector. So, who’s the victim this time-” “Mary, we really need to speak afterwards -”

In a blink of an eye, things at Baker Street seemed to return to normal: too many people, too many voices, and a whole lot of harmless ruckus. The host and guests took their seats, and dinner was served. Sally snickered when James claimed that he didn’t want any peas but apparently was happy to hoard the asparagus.

“You’re going to share your asparagus with everyone and eat all of your peas. I don’t want to hear any excuses,” admonished Molly, taking the spoon from Sally and giving James a healthy dollop of his least favourite vegetable.

Pouting, the boy poked the little round legumes moodily, testing their firmness. He absolutely hated mushy peas. “I’m going to look for Father,” He declared aloud, and hopped off his seat before Molly could grab a hold of him.

“James!”

“You really ought to do something about him, or you’ll be in hell when he grows up,” James heard John say when she thought he was out of earshot. Mrs Hudson sighed, and Lestrade could be heard agreeing with something along the lines of “boys need a firmer hand”, but James paid none of them any mind.  

Rolling her shoulders, Sally poured herself a glass of water and went to eat in the kitchen. Staring at her own plate, she sighed a little. Molly had offered for her to eat at the table with the rest of them, claiming they’d make space if everyone just squeezed in, but Sally declined her kind offer. To be honest she was somewhat relieved to be out of there and away from whatever storm cloud John was trapped under. As the tightly wired adults unwound with some hearty food and a good bottle of wine, whatever drama that might be brewing underneath the surface would hopefully dissipate for the time-being. With any luck, they’d have a quiet evening.

Just as she was digging into her meal, a sudden succession of shrill rings echoed from the living room. Sally scowled. _Great. Who could be calling now?_

Wiping her hand down on her apron, the maid rushed down the hall. One of these days, someone should really invent a way for telephones to be unattached. Like...wireless.

She made it to the telephone just a second before John, which was a shame since if she knew he was going to get it, then she wouldn’t have bothered running. Picking up the receiver, Sally tried to relax her breath before speaking. The thing about the telephone was that the sound quality wasn’t the best; one often had to yell just to be heard (someone should really get on fixing this too).

“Hello, Holmes residence.”

“Hello, I wish to speak with Mr Holmes.”

Whatever Sally was expecting, the female voice on the other end wasn’t it. It was _her_ , that woman, that woman she saw in the garden with Sherlock, that woman in James’s photograph...that _Irene_. There was no mistaking the caller’s identity; Sally had only ever met one person in this world whom she would feel justified to use the phrase ‘bedroom voice’, and it was the fashionable, charming Miss Katherine Wolfe.  

John noticed her freeze up, and took a cautious step towards her, concerned. “Sally, who is it? Is it a client?” And then, inexplicably, he gave her a look that made her extremely annoyed. It was one of those faces that he often complained to Sherlock about: the ‘we both know what’s going on here look’. Sally finally understood why John had been so aggravated by it, because goddamn if it weren’t the most frustrating thing! The worst part, Sally came to understand, was not because she hadn’t a clue what was going on; it was because she did have an inkling, but was too uncertain of herself to share it. Suppose that she was wrong? It would be humiliating for multiple parties.  

_Oh my god, what do I do?_

“Are you still there?”

Sally panicked. Should she hang up? Say it was a mistake? Make up an excuse? Because surely, she could not hand the telephone over to Holmes with a clear conscience.

Too late. Sally saw John’s gaze drift to a spot behind her, and a second later, felt the earpiece being plucked out of her hand.

"Hello, this is Sherlock Holmes."

_Speaking of bedroom voices…_

After a quick wash and a change of clothes, Sherlock appeared much more refreshed in his clean suit.

As quickly as she could, Sally dodged out of the way. Being close to Sherlock always made her uneasy; it was the same kind of irrational fear she’d get as a child on a particularly dark night. Logically, she knew there was nothing underneath her bed, but she still couldn’t shake the idea that if she slipped her feet out from under the covers, some monsters would snatch them up while she slept.

There may or may not be a monster inside Sherlock Holmes, but Sally for one wasn’t keen on finding out.

From a safe distance, she watched the detective’s face shift from one of mild surprise to one of alarm. What did the woman saying to him? What propositions had she made? Sally felt as though she could explode with the questions in her head. Casting a furtive glance towards John, Sally was thrown off by his livid expression.

_Jesus, what…_

_Does he know? He must know...yes, he must…_

Without speaking to either of them, Sherlock glanced down at the child tugging at his sleeve for attention. Sally nearly jumped seeing James next to his father, standing there without a word and holding his hand like a little boy (well, he was a little boy, but sometimes with that mouth of his it was easy to forget).

Sans warning, Sherlock’s eyes softened, and he smiled, muttering hushedly, “Yes, he is.”

_What?!_

Sally snapped her head to John to gauge his reaction, only to find him positively green. His face was pinched so tightly that Sally feared he might hurt himself.

Sensing his friend’s rage silently boiling at his side, Holmes pivoted his body so that his height would block John from his son’s view. In doing so, his penetrating eyes locked on Sally, and in that terrifying second, Sally knew her suspicions were all on her face for him to deduce. God, what was she saying, it was barely in need of a proper deduction. She could have written it in ink and it would have been just as obvious for him to read!

The woman on the other end posed a question, and he paused to consider. It didn’t take a genius to guess what she had asked.

_Oh my god. No, he wouldn’t dare…_

"Yes. See you soon."

Just like that, Sherlock hung up.

John opened his mouth, ready to shout abuse, but James, either oblivious to the wordless struggles of the adults or simply not caring, cut in first, “Father, where are you going?”

Sherlock laid a gentle hand on James’s mass of curly hair, ruffling it a little, and beheld the curious boy with a tenderness rarely displayed. It wasn’t that Sally believed the man incapable of bearing affection for James; quite the contrary, the father and son had an exceptionally good relationship. Yet for all these years that Sally had worked in this home, she felt the presence of a shadow looming over Sherlock whenever he watched his only child. No - no, that wouldn’t be correct. There was indeed a shadow, but she hadn’t realise it was _there_ until this very moment, when the light began to shine through the dull, nebulous grey. Wondrously, She watched it dissipate, fading into the warmth of his smile, like mist on a sun-kissed window.  

“To see a client,” responded Sherlock.

“Can I come?” James pleaded, puppy eyes turned on to the maximum.

Heart pounding, Sally held her breath.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! Senior year has been insane! Hopefully, the long chapter will make up for it. There was supposed to be a scene with Irene but it got postponed to the next chapter. It was too long.  
> 1) the term "serial" killer wasn't coined until the 1970s,  
> 2) I was inspired by a post made by snogboxez on tumblr.


	9. VIII

 

The residents of Chinatown knew that the attractive, unmarried girl living in the flat above Mr. Leung's shop was not your average immigrant. She lived by herself and that alone was quite unheard of, especially when in this part of town you had no shortage of single (or not so single) men looking for trouble. She had no family: no father, brother or husband to speak of. Her stay in town was fleeting; they said she arrived with the spring thaw in 1896 and was gone by the first snow. Little was known of the young woman except that she made her living in town working in a tea house during the day, and in the evenings she served her own brew at a small stand across from Mr Lou’s Chinese apothecary. Everyone called her _Yao Siu Ze -_ meaning “Miss Yao” in Cantonese - but that, as I have to come to know, was not her name.

In a police report I dug up in the Met’s archives, an account of “Soolin Yao” was given by _Mama Tsui,_ a brothel madam who had been the busybody of the neighbourhood and apparently knew everything about everyone. She believed that Miss Yao was some sort of kept woman, because sometimes there would be nights when she didn’t come home, only to return in the morning by means of a rich man’s carriage. Miss Yao had never made any admissions to Mama Tsui's speculations, not in so many words at least, but when the madam had asked her if there was a sweetheart, Miss Yao had smiled and said nothing.

There was, of course, no sweetheart. Romance simply wasn’t where her interests lied. Still, Soolin never dissuaded her neighbours from thinking so and chose instead to let them conjure up whatever interpretation which most satisfied their curiosity. One’s secret is always most protected when those around one have been misled to believe they know what it is.

In the grand scheme of things, Soolin knew that she was expendable. That morning, as she served tea to Holmes and Adler - dressed appropriately in black and white respectively - she felt very much like the little white pawn Adler chose to push forward as her first move. Holmes didn’t seem to notice, which meant that he was already one step behind. That gave Soolin a sliver of confidence, because even pawns, if clever enough to breach the opposition’s defences, can become queens.  

And Soolin, well, she was so much more than a pawn.

It was late in the afternoon by the time she arrived at an inconspicuous boarding house, and the summer heat that had eluded June was beginning to swell this first week of July.

Stepping out of the cabriolet, Soolin adjusted her hat so the front rim casted an obscuring shadow across her eyes. She paid her cab fare to the driver with a polite nod.

“Thank you again, Billy,” she smiled.  

The cabbie tipped his cap and grinned crookedly. His left eye had been almost completely overwhelmed by a growing cataract. Soolin could barely see the ring of hazel-brown around the mass that sat like a great cloudy disk over the man’s vision. He probably shouldn’t have been driving, but Soolin valued more that the man who could potentially be forced to give up her whereabouts under duress would be unable to make an accurate identification.   

In light of everything, I believe Miss Yao was wise to do so.

“Not a bova, Miss. Ya want me ter come back in an ‘aahr, innit?”  

“If you could.” She didn’t like to speak too much in general, lest the sound of her voice or her accent became too familiar.

Soolin waited until the cabbie drove around the corner before heading down the street, about a block from where she was dropped off, and then swiftly disappeared into an alley. On the front, the building appeared nothing out of ordinary, a simple grey-stone house, like so many others in London. To the side of the building, near the back where the bins were kept was a narrow inconspicuous backdoor.

Checking left and right and above (because people always forgot about eyes that watched from windows and roofs), Soolin unlocked the door and slipped inside. When the door shut quietly behind her the darkness was absolute, so much so that it was impossible to tell the time of day. It would have been quite disconcerting, but Soolin had done this countless times. With the ease and accuracy that could only come with practice, she found the match box and oil lamp against the wall. Orange light lit the path in front of her, down a set of steep, narrow stairs.

The scent of mould and dust was immediate and potent, and as she descended lower into the depths, the smell grew stronger.

The basement was a long narrow hallway flanked by several rooms, at the far end of which was a solid iron door leading into a secure space.

Soolin hated basements; it brought back too many memories of her childhood on the streets of Hong Kong. Hong Kong was never cold, not like London, but it was wet and rainy and humid in the summers, and on the off chance that her brother could find them shelter, it was always in a dingy basement owned by someone with too much money than one person should have. Sometimes, she thought she preferred the streets. Her brother would find work at the wet market, butchering meat mostly, and when he had income - however scant it might have been - life wasn’t the worst. It was still bad...but at least there was food in her stomach, and even the smell of copper, which at first was sickening to her, became bearable. As she grew, and as her brother graduated from butchering pigs to butchering people for the Black Lotus, Soolin learned that pigs and people gushed the same way when you sliced open their belly, and they smelled the same kind of awful too, when their stripped corpses are left hanging on a hook.

_“Just let me go.”_

Those had been the last words she spoke to her brother. She could still feel the edge of his sword against her chin and the sharp swoop of air that should have signalled the end of her life. But, when she opened her eyes, her brother was already gone, and seeing the broken strands of her hair lying at her feet, she knew that she was dead to him.

Later, when she found out about his demise, a part of her felt responsible.

他是被老虎咬死地 _,_ a former acquaintance told her, after which he demanded that she never seek him out again.Mauled to death by a tiger - in the underground of Asia, this wasn’t an unusual way to die. A lot of people from the Black Lotus were said to have been killed by tigers... Soolin knew very well what that euphemism meant.

For those in the know, there were several names in continental Asia which were synonymous with death: _ZhiZhu, Tiger, Agra, HongHe._ The latter two haven’t surfaced in years, her brother “ZhiZhu” was dead, and the Tiger that killed him…

Well, she was about to bring him supper. Checking her attire and composure, Soolin took a deep breath and entered the room.

Colonel Sebastian Moran sat waiting for her with his foot propped on the table and an empty jug of ale swinging boredly in his left hand.

"Good, you're here. I'm starving," complained Sebastian, rising from his seat, making a beeline towards her, and rather rudely tugging the basket out of her hand.   

Soolin frowned at him. “Richard Nader is dead.”

“I know.” Sebastian cocked an eyebrow, sparing the woman a condescending side-eyed look before turning his attention to his dinner. “Everyone knows. Murdered in Kensington.”

Soolin’s frown deepened. “You were supposed to keep him alive.”

Sebastian’s knife stilled against the slab of medium steak, and his jaw tightened. He couldn’t allow himself to feel responsible, because he owed Adler nothing. They were each other’s means to an end, so she had no claim on his loyalty and therefore no right to evoke his guilt. Besides, he only did what she had wanted.

“I was too late. The Others got to him first.” Then, turning his glare from his plate to the Asian woman, he demanded accusingly, “Where the hell were you? Why didn’t you have Nader under surveillance?”

Soolin bristled reflexively. This wasn’t her fault; unlike Sebastian, she had followed her own orders to a tee. She was explicitly told to keep her distance, and to not intrude no matter what the circumstance. Besides, they had only just received confirmation of Nader’s identity forty-eight hours ago. What’s more, the man returned to London not for a day - no one could have anticipated that The Others would act so quickly.

Although… an instinct told Soolin that Irene Adler had foreseen this all along and chose nevertheless to watch the events unfold. It didn’t make sense to Soolin; in the last month, Irene had pursued this trail with merciless vigour, so would she suddenly allow Richard Nader to die?

But to Moran’s accusations, Soolin said nothing. She did not answer to his command and owed him no justification. Certainly, she knew what he was capable of when enraged, but she also knew what she was capable of herself, and Moran did not frighten her.

Soolin took a seat across the colonel. Casually, she poured some liquor for the two of them.

“What is this?” He sniffed at it testily.

“Mijiu," she replied, taking a sip from her own glass.

Sebastian grunted and drank without any more complaint. Soolin watched him silently, thinking that if she wanted to, it would almost be too easy...

Sebastian didn’t particularly like her, but he tolerated her enough that Miss Adler made her his correspondent. Soolin was a strict pacifist who vowed to leave the violence of her upbringing where it belonged: in the past. To Moran, she was merely a harmless instrument. Never could he have fathomed the rage beneath the calm that the girl wore as such a perfect mask.

And Soolin, well, she knew what she was here, why Irene Adler chose her for this position. The Woman trusted no one, least of all Sebastian Moran. He was the dynamite that she held at arm’s length, waiting for the moment to toss at her enemies. Soolin was the kill-switch, in case of what she liked to call “premature detonation”. Irene Adler chose her for her temperament and for her skills, but most of all, she chose her for the unwavering assurance that when given the chance Soolin would not hesitate to turn the colonel’s innards into liquid.

Miss Adler promised her that when this was over, she would not leave Moran to Mycroft Holmes’s devices. That honour will be reserved for Soolin alone.She would break her pacifist vow just this once, and for this reason only. Until then, she would play nice and wait.   

“Did you get a good look at who did it?”

Sebastian shook his head, “Only a shadow, but it was a woman.”

“She gutted him. Quite a piece of work.”

“No. She _killed_ him. _I_ gutted him.” Sebastian unsheathed his hunter’s knife from his belt, looking very much like the cat that caught the canary, as if Soolin had just paid him a personal compliment.

She crinkled her nose, “Well, in that case, it was excessive.”

The colonel rolled his eyes. “We know who sent the assassin, why not point the Met in the right direction? Those morons need all the help they can get.”  

“Also,” Seb paused, taking a sip of his mijiu and then grimacing at the taste. “Richard Nader was tortured first before killed. She pulled out his nails and broke all his fingers. When I saw her dump his body, I tried to engage her, but she wasn’t interested in fighting me.”

Soolin’s interest peaked. Setting down her drink, she leaned forward. “Did you reveal your face?”

“Do you think I’m an amateur?”

“But she _recognised_ you.” Any assassin worth his salt knew that each fighter had their own signature, a fingerprint of patterns and trends of their motions and instincts. A mask can cover the face, but that is the extent of the disguise.

Sebastian smirked smugly. “She did, and by now her master must have been informed.”

_So that's what The Woman wanted._

Soolin shared a small knowing smirk with Sebastian. The bait had been set, but not for the killer last night: _she_ was merely a blunt instrument, inconsequential in the grand scheme, a tiny fish in this very large pond. As for Irene Adler, she was not interested in any fish, but the largest monster in the sea.   

 

~~~

 

 

Dinner was served with crystals and wine under candlelight. Irene had exchanged the white lace of her day-wear for something darker and made of satin. The deep royal blue matched the sapphire pendant nestled between the curve of her cleavage, and Sherlock hasn’t stopped staring at her.

It was a strange thing to admit, but Irene had always liked the feel of the detective’s eyes on her, his attention absorbed by whatever detail on her person that he found worth his fascination. Yet, there was a part of her that worried, even as she returned his gaze with a mirthful smile, that he would see too much of what she was unwilling to show.

The thing about men, as Irene had come to know, was that they tended to love the idea in their mind more than the actual woman before them. One of the most alluring parts of Sherlock, aside from his intellect, was that he didn’t have these ideas. An ideal woman - there was simply no room his mind palace for such a nonsensical and limiting human image. He wouldn’t be much of a detective if he bore a stereotype that would impede his analysis of fifty per cent of the population.

However, Sherlock Holmes was still only human, and therefore susceptible to human faults. Years ago, he’d found a woman who exceeded his expectation and bested the best of his wits. Irene had enough confidence to say that he had loved that woman - the Irene Adler who nearly exhorted a fortune from the British Empire, the one he had risked his own life to save, and the one who had bid him farewell teary-eyed despite their claims to abhor sentiment.       

So, despite not having any delusions of “the perfect woman”, Sherlock did have a ready-moulded version of “The Woman” that he kept safe and locked within his memory, a statute which hadn’t changed in seven years.

The problem, quite evidently, was that time _had_ gone by, and the Irene Adler sitting in front of him couldn’t possibly be a projection of her former self, frozen in time and space. That woman he had loved - however hard she tried to maintain the facade - no longer existed. Soon enough, he would begin to see through her act, and there was a real chance that he would not like what he’d find underneath.  

_“John can never know. It will break him, and I would lose him forever, and Irene, I will never ever let that happen.”_

In the spring of ‘88, Irene had had a brief conversation with the newly-wedded, heavily pregnant Addison G.R. Atwell, or as she was then known, Mary Watson. Mary had not been pleased to see a figure from her past, thinking that surely Irene’s presence in London would reveal her true identity and ex-profession to her husband.

Irene had not understood Mary’s sentimentality then: why would she pretend to be a person that she clearly wasn’t?

But now, facing her own pressure point, Irene was suddenly overwhelmed by the bittersweet irony. The sentiment for which she had been so quick to judge Mary had become the sinking ground from which she could not extract herself.

The way Sherlock’s unblinking gaze fixated on her face was starting to unnerve her. It wasn’t a dull stare, the mile-long kind that suggested boredom (and besides, Sherlock could never be _silent_ if he was bored). His eyes were sharp, pupils dilated under the dim light. He was thinking and analysing …

It worried her, the things that went on in his mind, because she knew how very easily the web of deception could be broken.

_It would break him, and I would lose him forever…_

Irene could only hope that that day would not come so soon for herself.

“I’ve been thinking,” began Sherlock, jolting her from her thoughts.

“Oh good. I certainly wouldn’t want to bore you,” she replied lightly, hoping that she did not seem as startled as she really was.

“About what you said earlier in the tea-room, about Hamish,” he continued tentatively, gauging her reaction.

_“I don’t care why she gave him up. I don’t care why she came back. Maybe she loves James, maybe she doesn’t, I don’t know, but she doesn’t get to waltz into this family like she’s got any right to be here, and you don’t get to let her.” John had set his foot down, and was not willing to budge an inch. Lowering his voice, he clenched his teeth and his fists, and uttered in a forced tone, “If you want to...to go back to her, have relations, I can’t stop you, Sherlock. I am your best friend, but Irene Adler - she’s -” he barked a bitter laugh, “she’s got you hooked. But James, he is a child and my godson; you may be his father, but every adult under this roof loves that child and will protect him against anything that could hurt him - even you. So you don’t get to have the final say in this matter, Sherlock, mate. You don’t. When you find out what that woman wants - I mean **really** find out - we can discuss the terms, but until then, that boy does **not** go anywhere near her.” _

Sherlock found it ironic and somewhat amusing that the people in his life trusted him with their lives but not, apparently, with his own. His brother, like his best friend and housekeeper, had gotten the notion in his head that Sherlock was in need of protection, or at the very least, supervision. His greatest long-term foe, save for the late Professor Moriarty, had always been himself and his self-destructive tendencies.

In his younger years, during the heaviest period of his drug use, Sherlock’s biggest problem and brother’s biggest concern was not that he was ignorant of the consequences of opiates, but that he simply didn’t care. Just like he didn’t care that Irene Adler was a scheming, wicked extortionist who’d sell out a nation for her own gains; he still risked his life to save her from the executioner’s blade. In their eyes, it made no difference if Sherlock's love affair was with cocaine or the Adler woman - either way, it was going to kill him. So like all bad habits, it must be put to an end swiftly and decisively.

But, since Sherlock was an adult and therefore subject only to the law and no one’s biddings, they could only extend the reach of “their protection” to the boy who was too young to resist.

In certain respects John was right, of course. Irene was dangerous, and she was as neck-deep in this Jack the Ripper mess as Mycroft.

Sherlock knew that he should be focusing on the bigger issues. Richard Nader's death was not to be taken lightly, and this sudden series of vicious murders raised a slew of questions, both new and old. Coincidence could not explain why the day Irene Adler brought up the topic of Jack the Ripper, a man was killed in the Jack’s trademark style the very same night. If Sherlock had his suspicions before, now he could almost be sure that these murders were not only serial, but professional and most importantly _organisational._ If they were not, Mycroft would never be involved. Last night, Sherlock had been expecting his brother to “assign” him this case, as he had done so many times with other important national matters, but Mycroft hadn’t. If anything could speak for the weight of this situation, Mycroft’s reservation definitely did. He knew much more than he was willing to share, but while Sherlock was sure that in due time he would find out his brother's plans, Irene Adler’s association with The Ripper was still a black box to him.

She claimed that she didn’t know any more than what Godfrey Norton had told her, but believing that statement was stretching the limits of his trust.

Logically, Sherlock wanted to listen to John, not because he thought Irene would actively seek to hurt James, but because as he understood The Woman, it was entirely imaginable that she would use his - _their_ \- son to advance her own interests.

But still... he wanted to bring James to meet her. He was curious as to what it’d be like to see the two of them together. James had her eyes, her hair, and her smile. John was wrong about one thing, though; the reason that Sherlock wanted to bring James to Irene was not because he was _her_ son, but because James was _his_. Irene was The Woman, the exception who Sherlock could not quit, and as illogical and sentimental as it sounded, it was important to him that James and Irene liked each other.

Even if Irene had no biological relationship to the boy, Sherlock would’ve still wanted the same.

“Have you considered my request?” prompted Irene, and she couldn’t stop herself from revealing the hopefulness through her growing smile.

This seemed to encourage Sherlock, because he cleared his throat and continued, “I think it would not be impossible to assume that... James would not disagree to an...introduction of sorts.”

“Subtracting the quadruple negative, you intend to say…?”

Sherlock released a put upon sigh, scowling in annoyance that the woman refused to give him any leeway, even knowing that expressing these _feelings_ wasn’t his strong suit.

“If you’d like, I can bring him to see you.” After a short pause, he added, “I almost did tonight.”

That surprised her. “Why did you not?” Her tone wasn’t accusing,simply curious. In fact she was rather glad Sherlock hadn’t brought their son, because she would have been ill-prepared to receive them both.

“John ‘forbade’ it. He thought it was grossly inappropriate,” answered Sherlock, lips thinning in a way that suggested to Irene those were probably the doctor’s exact words. “He threatened to report me.”

“Report you?” At that, Irene scoffed, half laughing. How she manages to make a rude noise sound elegant, Sherlock will never understand. “Did Mycroft put him on sentinel duty?”

“More or less,” he grimaced. “But I do believe John was referring to my mother. Sometimes I regret ever introducing them.”

 _“_ Of course, ‘Mummy’.” Irene raised her glass, rolling her wrist in a gesture that said no amount of matriarchal meddling could stop her. She watched Sherlock through her lashes as the corner of his lips twitched upwards, and her own smirk grew as a reflection of his. Sherlock had always been inexplicably fond of her particular brand of insolence, and Irene, well, she was nothing but smug about that.

“Well, that is inconvenient,” she said into her drink.  

“Quite,” agreed Sherlock, taking a bit of his veal with a bit too much force. “If she finds out - and she will, because Mycroft can never stop himself from catering to her demands - I will have to think of an explanation to tell her that won’t cause a natural disaster, or worse, give her a coronary. She’s a very shrewd woman, my mother; I learned that the hard way.”   

Irene’s eyes narrowed.

She could tell that Sherlock was trying very hard to keep himself pleasant, to keep from frowning. A part of her felt touched that he was willing to be so stubborn for her sake, to fight against the nagging worry that his friends were right about her, that his own instincts were right, that she would set fire to everything he held dear and stomp over the ashes without hesitation.

Irene knew that it was sentiment that kept her in his good graces, because after all this time, he still wanted to believe the better of her, even when she knew he had absolutely no reason to.  

Sentiment was all they had now beyond the most basic mutual respect, but she was beginning to see how that couldn’t possibly be enough…

There was no conceivable reason why she asked him to dinner tonight - a real meal with sweet Italian wine and candlelight - except perhaps to stare at him quietly across the cherry wood. To set her schemes and chicanery and to have this man sit in her company and share a meal with her, it was pleasure for pleasure’s sake. She wanted to indulge herself just this once, and truth be told, she hadn’t thought he’d agree quite so easily.

Now it was very clear why he had. Sherlock knew what she wanted: James. Irene had made her desire to see their son more than clear in the teahouse. And she knew what he wanted. There was no point in pretending that she was simply a messenger for Norton anymore. Not with Richard Nader’s body still warm in the morgue. She had proposed a deal on Norton’s behalf the same night that a man was mutilated in the Ripper’s signature; there was no sane reason why Sherlock would not suspect her involvement, or at least want the knowledge of the more intimate and heinous details about this mass murderer.

In bringing up the Lady Dowager, the implication was quite clear, however subtle Sherlock had tried to be. The right to see her son would be granted in exchange for everything she knew, and Irene…

Well, she would not stand it _._ How dare he treat this like a business transaction?!  

Fists tightened around her cutlery, she gritted out, ice cold, “You would dangle him, my _son,_ in front of me like bait.”  

Sherlock flinched, literally flinched, as if she’d just reached across the table and slapped him across the face. His attention snapped up from where it was fixed on cutting a piece of fig, his expression confused and aghast.

“Irene, I -” Somewhere in his larynx his words got lost, because all he could focus on was the woman sitting across from him, and he couldn’t speak.

Sherlock thought he had familiarised himself with the many masks of Irene Adler, studied them, memorised them. Irene had bared herself to him once, long ago, in a coastal town in Montenegro, and like the clothes slipping down on her back, he had watched the layers of her persona disappear, fading into the air along with puffs of smoke from her cigarette.

When they had writhed in their shared pleasure that rainy afternoon, his fingers tangled in her hair, and hers raking streaks of red into his skin, he had thought he’d seen the face beneath the masks just as she had seen his. So in all these years of her absence, and after all this time searching and failing, he still found solace in the reminder, whenever someone mentioned her name, that he _knew_ The Woman, completely and utterly, in all its meaning.  

Yet this... this thin-lipped, fierce creature with skin like six inches of steel and polished diamonds for eyes - he didn’t know who this was.

“Is that why you’re here?” she scowled. “To make a deal with me: James, for the information in my head about the Ripper? Did Mycroft put you up to this... or is this the good doctor?”

“No- yes, John had tried to, but I -”

Sherlock’s first instinct was to deny it. It wasn’t true - at least, not on his part. Yes, John wanted him to coax the truth from her and withhold access to James as incentive, but that was never his intention. He only brought up the topic of “explaining to Mummy” because he wanted to hear Irene’s idea on what they should say in case John did rant to Violet and this whole thing went pear shaped.

Mummy, John - they were Sherlock’s family, but Irene and James – it…

Why couldn’t she see that he wasn’t trying to negotiate anything out of her? This wasn’t coercion, this was his attempt at collaboration! He’d forgotten for a moment whose side of the game he played for, and had actually deluded himself into believing that Irene was on his team.

She wasn’t. Whether she meant to or not, she had revealed that there was a lot more she knew more than she let on.

Setting down his cutleries, Sherlock leaned back against his chair, his troubled expression schooling into calm apathy, his gaze a moment ago clouded by frustration now sharp with intent and calculation.

Lacing his fingers together, he levelled icily, “I thought you said you didn’t know anything.”

Irene wasn’t fazed. “You never asked, did you? Your brother did all the talking in his office. You could have asked me, and I might have told you.”

“I _did_ ask. In the tea-room this morning, in case you forgot.” Despite the issue of James distracting him, Sherlock hadn’t completely forgotten the critical problem at hand. If Irene Adler posed a threat to this city, his city - a very likely scenario judging by present state - he would undoubtedly be in the first line of defence against her. _The only line of defence_ , in his opinion. Normally Mycroft was the final barrier protecting Britain and her interests, but Sherlock had seen how dismally his brother's people dealt with Irene before and knew there was little hope to be found there.

Rising from her seat, Irene made her way down the table to stand at his side.

“No, you asked why I’m here, and what I want. I told you the truth. I want to see my son.” And that wasn’t lie. Irene had lots of plans made for the boy.

“I told you and your brother last night that you have Mr Norton’s complete cooperation. His faculties are at your disposal, including me.” Her fingers trailed the surface of the table and came to a stop at the wrist he rested at the edge.

Sherlock stared at the gloved hand inches away from his own and then up at the woman. The pleasant air of their dinner had disappeared, and she stared down at him with a sobering gaze, cold and penetrating.  

At his silence, Irene continued, her fingertips tracing the length of his arm as she rounded behind the chair. Against his will, goose pimples rose beneath his sleeve in wake of her touch, forcing him to clench his jaw trying to suppress the shiver coursing through his blood. Even so, Sherlock felt his left hand tremor, a symptom he couldn’t control.  

“I am Norton’s liaison,” began Irene. “As such, I know what he knows, even if it’s not enough to uncover the Ripper’s full identity. Don’t you find it strange that your brother didn’t ask anything; didn’t even try to pick my brain? You saw his face - he believed me. Jack the Ripper is back, yet you spent the entire night digging illegally through the Met’s archives instead of going through the resources at your brother’s disposal.”

She stopped at his other side, drawing his attention up the length of her torso, over her bare shoulders to the smile that was in part condescending and in part undecipherable. “He sent you home empty-handed. Why is that? Aren’t you curious?”

One leg lifting off the floor, Irene perched on the edge of the dining table, leaning forward imposingly onto her palm. “What does Mycroft have to hide?”

Sherlock met her stare unflinchingly, though truth is he hadn’t the faintest idea. Neither did he have any rebuttals prepared in defence of his brother. He thought back onto the original case, the case he missed, and the minimal amount of fuss the Met had made when he returned. Even Lestrade had said there was nothing to be done, that the higher authorities had taken over and sealed up everything with “secrecy and shenanigans”. Whatever it was, it was over - though to the public they were not to say a word.

Sherlock was a detective; he wasn’t a politician and had no interest in their world. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t against putting his nose where it didn’t belong (in fact he was rather expert at it), but the problem of Jack the Ripper obviously came from higher up in the bureaucratic food-chain, and he didn’t care enough about his brother’s problems to poke at it.  He had no client - none of the families of the deceased came to him for help - so there had been no case.

Until now.  

“Norton didn’t send you to London for Mycroft’s help,” said Sherlock, the implications behind Irene’s words crystallising in his mind.

“No. There is only one Holmes Godfrey is willing to work with, and he trusts Mycroft about as far as he could throw him.”

“Norton believes Jack the Ripper is someone within the British government.”

Logic and incorporation of Irene’s earlier speech led to this singular deduction. It sounded absurd of course, but somehow the scenario wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility.

“British governing class, to be more precise,” Irene corrected. “Let’s not rule out the monarchy, shall we?”

It had become perfectly clear to Sherlock that Irene’s going to Mycroft’s office was purely tactical. A clever misdirection, leading Mycroft to think he still had some semblance of control over this situation, when in fact even he himself might be under suspicion.

A small begrudging part of him applauded her for playing his brother so well. Sherlock chided himself; he should’ve seen it coming. Irene’s reasoning was sound, at least at first glance - if indeed the Ripper were of royal descent, then Mycroft’s reticence about the whole ordeal would not be so unusual. Though, none of this explained her bizarre engagement and impending nuptials to Lord Aldenham. He hadn’t forgotten about that, even if it stood to be insignificant against the grander issues. Nothing in this case should be overlooked.

His eyes narrowed in contemplation

“And what does Norton want with me? Kill Jack the Ripper?”

“No, no, he is much more valuable alive than dead.”

Of course, alive the Ripper could be more leverage that Norton could use to build his empire. Another marionette stringed his to fingers. There were men who wanted to let the world burn just to feel the heat of that fire against his skin, but Norton wasn’t one of those men. He didn’t do it for the chaos, or for the thrill, or because he could - his motives were as simple as they came: money and power, and the luxuries in life those two things could buy.

“And what is your part in all this?” Sherlock asked, rising from his seat too. The meal was essentially over. “What is Aldenham’s?”

“That’s between me, Mr Norton, and Lord Gibbs.” responded Irene without a beat, and for the first time since finding out about her return, Sherlock pondered over her relationship with the American oil tycoon. Irene had always had her preferences: pretty girls with red hair, petite things with doe eyes but a smart mouth. Except, she had her exceptions too...

Sherlock braked his thought along its mental track, knowing he couldn’t afford to divulge into unchartered areas.     

_She’s a pathological liar, Sherlock, incapable of telling the truth!_

John’s voice rang in his head, and for once, Sherlock did not shut it out. It resonated there, echoing over and over again.   

“Don’t look so grim, Sherlock. Godfrey and I have no intentions to harm England’s interests.” The way her lips formed over the vowels of the other man’s name caused his guts to lurch uncomfortably, but he pushed it aside.

Raising a sceptical brow, he disguised his nausea with snark. “Somehow I seriously doubt it.”

“Then believe in the Ripper. He is real, and he is here: the world’s most infamous serial murderer, a rot inside your brother’s government.” Tilting her chin, Irene stood to her full height and challenged him with small, confident smirk, “So what will it be Mr Holmes?”

There were mere inches of space between them, they were so close he could see the silver in the blue of her iris and smell the fragrance of her perfume lingering along the column of her neck. He’d forgotten how despicable, how dangerous she could be, and how _attractive_ she was despite of it (or _because_ of it).

Even now, amidst their adversarial discussion, he couldn’t fight off the instinct to lean a little bit closer towards her. She stood, immovable, before him, chin pivoted upwards defiantly, eyes locked on his own, and her chest nearly pressed against his…

 _So what will it be, Mr Holmes?_ Such was the challenge: could he resist the allure of a serial murder and the woman who brought the case to him with a red smile and a fist over his heart?  

The answer was no. No, he could not. He could not ignore the call of The Work, and he also doubted the extent of his inhibition against Irene.

He wanted her, even with anger bubbling under his skin, he wanted her. This was a problem.

 _How hard would it be?_ a petulant inner voice whispered. To grasp her by the back of her lovely neck…to bend forward minimally, dip, and taste the lips that he has been fixated on for the better part of the evening? It would be over in a heartbeat, and no one would have to know except the two of them.

Sherlock realised, quite abruptly, that this tortured reservation would _have_ to be the state with which he conducted himself in the foreseeable future, how ever long that may be. It was a silly little act - impounding his own desires and denying himself what he wanted - but it was a necessary measure. She was poison, this woman. And to think a minute ago he was considering extending her a fraction of his custody over their son...  

_“I have always counted on you to steer me along the path of the morally upright, John, so tell me this - do you think this is right, what you are asking me to do, keep James in the dark about his own mother?”_

_“Oh god’s sake, when has she ever been his mother?!”_

Sherlock had been too quick to jump to her defence - god, he’d always been so _stupid._  

He needed a clear head in this game they played, not only for the case of the Ripper, which could possibly be the most demanding one yet, but also for boy he had to keep safe. He couldn’t afford to lose.  

Squaring his shoulders, Sherlock straightened his suit jacket and extended his hand in a formal gesture.

“I’ll take the case.” Then sarcastically, he added as an afterthought, “Do give _Godfrey_ my best.”  

Whether the woman liked it or not, theirs will have to be a business transaction, though, one which their son would have no part of. The problem of James would have to be re-evaluated and treated separately from the Ripper investigation, because John was right (the man often was): Irene Adler’s name was synonymous with danger, and her world was too perilous, too unpredictable for any child, even her own.

Irene ripped her eyes from where it was fixed on his to the hand he held out between them, like a barrier purposely placed to maintain their distance. He watched her with a close scrutiny, and the only slip that gave away her suppressed irritation was the slightest deepening of the frown lines around her eyes.

His gestured offended her, and out of spite, he found himself pettily gleeful.

Without too long a delay, Irene took his hand and gave it one firm and decisive shake, sealing their contract. As he tried to withdraw, her grip tightened, anchoring him in place so that he would look her right in the eyes as she reminded him, in a low, controlled tone of the one thing that was most important to her - to the both of them.  

“And our son?”

With a dark and mirthless smile, Sherlock wrenched his hand out of her grasp. “You’ll see him... in time.”

 

~~~

 

In 1896 there were no streetlamps, at least not electrical ones, and certainly the gas ones that did exist gave dismal lighting, especially on nights with such heavy fog. That is not to say that if a trained assassin were hopping from roof to roof at three in the morning there would be any residents awake or alert enough to notice in our time, but certainly back in the days without efficient electric technology, one’s nightly excursions were provided much more coverage by the darkness.

It rained after sunset, a quick thunderstorm that wasn’t unusual this time of year, but it rendered the night muggy and wet, and the shingles on one particular west London flat were slippery and hazardous to tread.

The man to whom the flat belonged was a foreign national and a prominent owner of several newspapers. The final editorial for tomorrow’s front page laid open on his bureau, and he nursed his second glass of scotch in satisfaction. His sources told him that none of his competitors had the depth of intel that he did, and in a couple of hours this would be the article to give most exposure to the Kensington alley murder.

God bless the freedom of the press.

Feeling particularly indulgent tonight, the man went to his alcohol cabinet for a third drink.

Suddenly, he felt the humid wind weeping into his study from the adjacent lounge, air brushing against his ankles. His first instinct was to reach for the handgun in the left side drawer of cabinet, but before he could move, a voice cut through the silence.

“I wouldn’t do that.”     

Against his will, the man felt a sharp current of shock spiking up his spine, but he regained his ground quickly. In an unrushed manner, he capped the decanter and returned it to its place on the shelf.

"So, you’ve come at last. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t." He turned around. The man was tall, thin, and bespectacled. Flat grey eyes appraised his darkly-swathed guest from head to toe, and lingered on the double-blade sword strapped to her back and the small calibre handgun at her side.  

“Ah. Still the same ensemble, I see. Though I would much prefer a face to face conversations.”

Tugging at the buckle above her ear, the visitor loosened the ties of her black mesh mask, and lowered it beneath her chin.   

“Better?”

A thin tight smile stretched across Magnussen’s face, making his eyes above excessively prominent cheekbones even more sunken. The dim candle casted a shadow across his face, and he appeared almost skeletal.

"Much. You haven’t changed a bit, my dear Mrs Watson.” Magnussen sauntered towards her until he was inappropriately close, enough to make the hair at the back of someone’s neck stand on end. Mary’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t flinch when he reached out a cold clammy finger and ran it slowly down the side of her cheek and into the folds of the black scarf draped around her neck. Her stomach turned, however, when Magnussen leaned in even closer until the tip of his nose brushed juncture of her ear and jaw.

Humming delightfully to himself, he took in her scent, and without pulling back, he spoke against her skin, his moist, lukewarm breath felt like smog against her neck.     

“It’s been so long - five years? And to think we both live in this great city and never cross paths.”

“Not long enough,” said Mary, when she was reasonably sure that she wouldn’t throw up.

Sometimes, Mary wondered what would happen if she told him no, that after everything they’d put her through she didn’t care what they threatened her with, that she was done being their puppet on strings. It would be immensely satisfying, Mary thought, to gouge out those shark-like eyes and skewer his brain from the roof of his mouth. And after he was absolutely dead, she would liberate herself by means of a bullet through the temple.  

John would be devastated, of course, but he wouldn’t break. She knew him to be tougher than that. He’d hold on to that pure, untainted image of her, his smiling, teasing wife, and he’d be all right. He’d never have to know the truth.

But Annabel...her poor girl…

She was the product of every last bit of kindness and goodness Mary possessed in her earthly body. Her golden girl, her clever, sweet Annabel...

Her employer was not above killing children, and Mary couldn’t imagine a world without her daughter, or one where the man she loved the most would be forced to bury not only a wife but a child. She couldn’t do that to John, not to her good John.

So as much as she would be delighted to gut Magnussen like the pig he was, he remained alive and well to this day. Turning her head, Mary side-eyed him. “I would’ve preferred never to see you again.”  

Ignoring her, Magnussen stood up straight and lifted his glass, “A drink?”

“No,” she answered, leaning back against his desk and crossing her arm.

“Now, now, is that the proper attitude towards an old friend?”

“You’re not my friend,” Mary scowled, teeth bared. “You’re my handler, so let’s make this quick.””  

“Well then,” sighed the man dramatically as he plopped himself onto his large office chair. He wiggled in his seat, trying to get comfortable whilst blatantly disregarding Mary’s anxiousness to get on with business. After an unreasonably long delay, he finally said, “The Preceptor has been... displeased in the past few days. Somebody is targeting his people, messing up his businesses, setting people against him that he would rather keep on his side.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you not know?”

“Of course not,” Mary snapped, anger flaring at this subtle accusation. Though she didn’t like her circumstances, she had never betrayed the organization in any capacity. “I’ve been put on silence for the past five years, you know this.”

“Well...Godfrey Norton is under the impression that our employer is no longer an ally. Somebody has been sabotaging his deals and… he seems to think it’s us, and he’s not the only one.”

Mary uncrossed her arm, finally understanding. “So, someone out there is determined to turn our friends against us.”  

“Yes.”

“Who does the Preceptor suspect?”

Magnussen said nothing and waited for her to draw the conclusions.

“No.” Mary, ever sceptical, shook her head. “He’s dead. Sherlock is certain of it, not to mention his brother -”

“But no one was ever able to make a positive identification. After last night, we no longer have the luxury of assuming that such a claim is unsubstantiated.”  

“This is about Richard Nader.”

“Yes, he was...careless and had to be stopped before the damage became irrevocable. However, in the process, we discovered that Colonel Sebastian Moran is alive and in London.” Magnussen peered at her over the rim of his round reading glasses. “As I recall, the Holmes brothers were positive that he was eliminated as well.”  

“Sebastian...are you certain?”

Ignoring her, Magnussen pulled out a slim envelope from his desk drawer and tossed it across the desktop. “Your assignment.”

Mary eyed the envelope with disdain, lips pressed thin.

She didn’t have anyone to blame for this predicament - only her own carelessness, to allow grief and emotion to overcome her discipline. 

Catherine Eddowes had been cold by the time Mary found her. Immediately, she thought to warn Lizabeth, but she had been too late. Elizabeth Stride had died in her arms. Mary watched in tears as the older woman bled out from her carotid, and she would never forget the light fading from Lizbeth's eyes. Caught in the moment’s throes, Mary couldn’t stand idly by, so she did what she knew in her bones she had to do, what every instinct drilled into her mind had compelled her to do.

Having crossed path with the killer in the process of Elizabeth’s murder, it took Mary no time to track down the one responsible and repay the favour tenfold. Even after everything, she didn’t regret seeking the revenge she was owed. The only regret she had was that she hadn’t been more discreet, because The Others had discovered her with blood still dripping from her bare hands, and from then on, they owned her.

Her false identity had been instantly rendered obsolete - they knew who she was, who she had been, and about her new family who had no idea the things she got up to in the dead of the night.

_Your daughter’s life for your obedience. It’s really not complicated._

Those had been Magnussen’s first words to her. He had stroked her cheek then, just like he did today, and whispered in her ear: _welcome back, Miss Royce-Atwell. The Preceptor has missed you very much._

The Preceptor - to this day she still had no idea who he was, the person (or people) she’d served for the better half of her life (though at one point, she was led to believe that she served Britain and her empire - well- that was a lie.) 

“Well, aren’t you going to open it? The message isn’t going to read itself,” Magnussen sighed into his whiskey, reclining back onto the padding of his chair. With zero regard for his present company, he lifted in his unsocked feet onto the surface of his bureau, nudging the envelope closer to Mary with the back his heel.

“Go on.”

Gritting her teeth, Mary yanked the thin blade from the inside of her sleeve and sliced open the letter in one swift motion.

Her assignment was one sheet of paper, with several short lines of instruction, but the content of that page made her blood run cold. She had expected a kill order, and to be honest, she’d expected an order of _Irene,_ but this, this was a whole lot worse.

“I can’t,” uttered Mary, losing her semblance of control at last. “I can’t. This is - he is my -”

“You will, _Addison_. You must.” Suddenly, the man was in her face as he snatched the paper from her hand. Producing a lighter from his pocket, he grinned as the fire reduced any trace of physical evidence into cinders. Evidence that Mary knew if she could get her hands on it, she would not have to live the rest of her life this way, held hostage by the sins of her past.

But the Preceptor was too careful, and Magnussen was as shrewd as their master. Mary watched the flames burn, stricken and hapless, while her handler happily lit up a cigar, the fire dancing like demons in his eyes.   

“Remember your priorities,” Magnussen said, blowing out a thick puff of smoke and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “It’s late. I’m going to bed. Unless you’d rather join me.”

Gritting her teeth, Mary drew her sword from its hilt and with its tip flicked the cigar out of Magnussen’s hand. The man jerked, eyes going wide in a sudden panic. Mary hoped, as she pressed the point against the hollow of his throat that his life flashed before his eyes.

“ _Don’t_ toy with me, Charles,” she warned. “I may be a blunt instrument, but I am **not** _your_ blunt instrument. So you will show me some respect, or I will cut you from nape to navel. _”_

As demonstration, she ran her sword slow down to his belly button and pressed harder, ensuring that he knew she’d make good on her threat.

“Yes, yes of course.” Magnussen swallowed thickly. “Have a good night, Mrs Watson.”

Mary withdrew her weapon, and her handler let out a breath of relief, closing his eyes. By the time he opened them again, she was gone.

 

~~~

 

In the dioceses of London there was once an old Archdeacon named Brandt Sinclair. Educated in history and philosophy with a particular specialty in Greek classics, the man was well groomed to be the next Bishop of London. Such was not a title to be taken lightly, for the position was the third in seniority in Church of England, after only the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and which earned the man a seat in the House of Lords.

Possessing both merit and seniority, Sinclair’s promotion seemed to all his peers an eventuality rather than a mere possibly, for with the current Bishop of London ill (and quite possibly never to recover), he was already the acting bishop.

The realms of politics and religion have never been far apart from each other, though one deals with the secular and another the sacred. They are, like two sides to a coin, bound together, and those who know how to manoeuvre between the two can use one to influence the other.   

In short, Sinclair was a man with a lot going for him and therefore with a lot to lose. Unfortunately, there was plenty of leverage to be found with a man of his position, if only one knew where to look.

The morning after the body of Richard Nader was discovered in Kensington, after a long rainy night, Sinclair arrived at St Mary’s to prepare for his sermon. The fog was dense around church ground, and with the air pollution, visibility was dismal. The church was empty save for himself and the seminarian under his tutelage, Andrew Galbraith, so he was immediately alarmed to find a hooded figure kneeling by the altar. The plume of a dark, long skirt and the slenderness of the silhouette against the morning light proved that it was a woman.    

As he drew closer, he realised that she wasn’t praying, just kneeling there with her eyes transfixed upwards, though, not at the statue of “the saviour”, but at the panels of stained glass above it. There, with the Holy Child upon her arm was The Virgin, garbed in blue and red and veil of white.

“Andy, why don’t you give the nave floor a good sweep,” said Sinclair. “Starting from the entrance.”

“Come, Mr Galbraith, I shall help you,” spoke another voice from behind. Sinclair swivelled around to find a young Asian woman sitting in one of the aisles. How neither of them noticed her was beyond him, but he did catch the absolute delight fleeting across Andrew’s face at the sight of her.

“Good morning, Miss Yao,” greeted Andy with a small smile. The boy was an uncomplicated soul, dedicated to his studies and his faith.

Whatever the boy thought he saw in her - _a quiet grace, a kind face_ \- Revd. Sinclair was quite sure that he was mistaken. Soolin Yao was no less dangerous than the Mistress she served. She had a pair of beautiful eyes, dark and vibrant, and full of depth enough to drown a boy like Andrew Galbraith.

As his subordinate left his company with the Asian woman in tow, Sinclair turned his attention to his uninvited guest.

“Ignosce mihi, pater, nam peccavi,” said the low feminine voice he recognised all too well. The Latin rolled off her tongue in a way that suggested she was, if not a scholar of the dead language, at least fluent in Italian.

Her head tilted minutely, the left side of her pale face emerging from the shadow of her hood so that one grey-blue eye gazed at him unblinkingly. Her lips, painted too red for the early hours and definitely too red for sacred grounds, curled into a bemused little smile. Priest or not, a woman like that was enough to make any man nervous.  

“You shouldn’t use -”

One narrow-eyed glance silenced him. She did what she wanted - he’d forgotten about that.  

“This isn’t funny, Miss Adler,” Sinclair said instead.   

“Who said I was trying to be funny? People do come to you to absolve their sins, do they not?”

“Yes, but usually with sincerity and utmost love for the Father.”

“Is _love_ the reason why so many feel compelled to come to this place to confess their darkest secrets? In my experience, love does not loosen one’s tongue, Reverend, only fear is capable of that. In this case, the fear of eternal damnation.”

"And are you not afraid?"

“I know fear, more intimately than you could ever imagine,” said Irene. Her fingers found the last button of her suit, and she twirled it between them absentmindedly.  "I am afraid, but not of Him. He is stone and mortar, and he cannot touch me."

"State your purpose Miss Adler, we don't have much time."

"Richard Nader is dead."

"I am aware."

"Very timely of them, I must say."

"The Others have always been singularly efficient. That is their conduct.”

"So efficient that one cannot help but think that perhaps they had insider's help."

Sinclair felt his throat suddenly tighten and he swallowed thickly. Against his will, he turned around, as if searching out his apprentice, but Andy was nowhere to be seen.

Irene rose from the ground, dusting herself off. "Don’t panic, Reverend Sinclair. I wasn’t accusing you.”

“Then why are you here?” The priest clenched his jaw, his own body tense like a high-sprung string.

The woman came toward him until they stood almost toe to toe. “A man of God such as yourself must protect his flock. Now the police are intent on keeping the public ignorant, but if there is a predator on the streets of London, shouldn’t people be made aware?”

Sinclair closed his eyes, nodding in understanding. “You want me to start a panic.”  

Jack the Ripper was a story of the past, a ghost of Whitechapel. Whoever he was, he never struck outside of neighbourhoods which have fallen into destitution. Yet, this archdeaconry was a wealthy and well-respected place, untainted by the brutal murders of east London. Murder in Kensington had already put so many households on edge (it was no wonder the police wanted to keep things hushed) but if the rumour spread, citizens would be seeing ghosts around every corner. Fear would drive the public imagination, and then there would be hysteria.  

“A small rumour goes a long way - it’s really very simple.” Irene shrugged in a cavalier manner, as if the whole ordeal were very inconsequential.

Seeing his hesitance Irene pressed closer. Truthfully, she was not a conventionally beautiful woman - her lips were too thin, her jaw too square - but nevertheless, there was something innately hypnotic about her. She had a pair of eyes that could reach into the very depth of someone’s soul.

“Have I ever led you astray, Reverend? If it were not for me, you’d be in chains, but instead, you are now deputy Bishop of London. Do as I ask, and you will rise to even greater heights. Disobey me, and I will ruin you.”  

Even a man of fortitude such as Sinclair could not suppress the chill shuddering through his body. In his own right, he was a perceptive man, and he could tell that Irene Adler carried something deep inside her. She claimed not to be spiritual in any capacity, but Sinclair had not been a man of God for so many decades to not recognise devotion in someone’s face when he saw it.

Though, to whom that devotion belonged, he couldn’t fathom in the least, especially when such a pure sentiment was buried beneath layers of more dominant emotions: a low-burning indignation and a saturated bitterness that made the inside of his mouth dry.  

Irene Adler was searching for something, something she couldn’t find in the peaceful and orderly everyday. She needed panic, chaos, because that was when people would make mistakes. She reminded him of a viper in wait for the perfect moment to strike down an unsuspecting prey.  

“I will do as you command,” Sinclair relented, bowing his head.

“Good.” Irene turned from him, raising her hood over her neatly coiffured hair.

“Will I be seeing more of you now that you are officially relocated back in London?” Sinclair called after her. She was so small in stature, the woman, but her shadow casted by the diffracted light from the window was long and wide over the nave floor.   

“Carry on with your usual tasks. You’ve been a very helpful eye in the House of Lords, Archdeacon Sinclair, I’d like you to stay that way. Since the Bishop of London doesn’t seem to improve, perhaps it’s time we retire him for good, don’t you think?”

The House of Lords… tendrils of news here, and whispers of gossip there - Sinclair had done what he could, and not a lot, in truth, but he had witnessed exactly the destruction Irene Adler was capable of spinning out of nothing. So even if the intelligence that came from him was insignificant in the eyes of others, in her hands, he shuddered to think how deeply the Norton empire she represented had rooted itself in this nation’s foundation.

“And how would you do that?” Bishop Temperance’s sudden illness had always seemed to Sinclair too perfectly timed; now he was certain that this woman had a hand in it.

“I have my ways,” smiled Irene over her shoulder. “Oh and do not attempt to contact me. Mycroft Holmes is having me watched. You should know by now that getting his attention is not something one should yearn for. I will find you, if I need you.”   

A courteous nod, another small smile, and she was on her way, her cloak billowing behind her.

Yet it was the brief, barely discernible glance she spared at the stained glass of Virgin Mary that gave her away, and which gave Archdeacon Sinclair the encouragement he needed to speak his mind about a topic he never dared to discuss before.

The heart of Irene Adler was not an impregnable fortress. She was a woman with a mind and passion of her own, and therefore possessed a love that was unlike any other.

“Miss Adler, whatever it is you’re looking for, I’m afraid you won’t find it. Not this way, at least.”

At first, it seemed as though she was intent on ignoring him, but then her rapid steps tapered to a stop and she spun around. Her expression was stone and ice - it was frightening.

But Sinclair did not rescind. “What was taken from you, you can’t reclaim it with rage and destruction. The boy is with his father -”

“Stop.” Livid and appearing two shades paler, Irene growled, “Stop. Talking.”    

“Your family -”

“I have no family!” she snapped, though, perhaps without enough care as to just how telling that one simple statement really was. The bare honesty shown through her frustration caught both herself and the archdeacon off guard, and when its significance dawned on her in the proceeding second, her brows pinched and her whole face seemed to crumble. Yet, the moment’s weakness was gone in a flash, so fast that Sinclair wondered if he had imagined it, for in the wake of her exclamation, there was only a hollow silence.  

Irene drew her cloak closer, despite it being muggy and humid after the rain.

“It’s never too late to ask for forgiveness,” said the archdeacon gently, as if to a wounded animal. “Or to forgive.”

His advice was meant to be consoling, but unexpectedly Irene laughed, a loud, barking laughter that echoed thunderously against the tall, vaulted ceiling. Sinclair had never heard laughter so loud and wild within these church walls. It sounded almost demonic.

“Forgiveness. Forgiveness?” Back arching and head tilting upwards, Irene gathered her breath and shook her head in disbelief, making the clergyman suddenly feel very naive, despite being two decades her senior.

“Give me vengeance or give me death, Reverend, for you see, I have no use for absolution.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After months, I finally updated. I try to make the chapters really long to make up for the fact I never update. :) Revd Sinclair is a character of my own creation. Soolin Yao and Andy Galbraith both appear in The Blind Banker (working at the museum). Thanks for reading! :)


	10. IX

 

**~ November, 1888 ~**

**8 Years Earlier**

 

In the quiet morning, under a dense blanket of late autumn fog and smoke, London slept.  

Mycroft Holmes stood behind the French balcony doors of his Knightsbridge home, overlooking the city that he considered ‘his’ with a frown more solemn and heavy than it had ever been. There was a glass of fine scotch in his left hand, its contents barely touched. It was his favourite, but from the way the pad of his index finger tapped against the cool glass – steadily growing warm within his clutch – it was evident that his present appetite was not for anything his stomach could consume.        

There was a stench in his nose he could not chase away with perfume or incense – a stench that enshrouded this city, this nation, and perhaps, even this great empire.

A city such as London could be considered to be "alive", and in concert with the scientific definition of “living”, it had an ability – a voice – with which to communicate and interact with the world.  Soft whispers and low moans, never vehement but ever present. If one knew how to listen, in the early morning, when the human heartbeats were quiet, the whispers would rise, like toiling bubbles from a cesspool popping open into nasty sores on the surface of a golden exterior.

Mycroft Holmes had been watching the pot churn for many years, observing with a neutral eye the gore buried within the glory, but tonight, tonight he heard the whispers. Loud and clear – more of a shout than a sigh, and he wondered to himself if he had been negligent. 

Slow.

Once, there are been an idea, born from the minds of those walking in the aftermath of Napoleon’s ambition, who recognised and predicted (quite accurately) the growing threat Russia would pose to Britain and her empire, who felt the slow erosion of the crown’s control over her remaining colony in the New World, and who sought to keep the Empire not only alive, but thriving, to have her reach extend further and her roots grow deeper in the soils oceans away.  

The idea gestated slowly over the course of years, but could never be laboured to life. Then finally, in the spring of 1849, a group of learned and ambitious aristocrats came together, took this suspended initiative, and delivered a mature concept which they believed would aid their beloved nation in its campaign for world dominance.  

Marques Siger Holmes and Baron Edward Smallwood, brothers-in-arms, had been two of the youngest members of the founding team, but their influences were no less significant – especially Siger, who some would claim was _the_  key architect. He was charming, eloquent, and burdened himself with the task of convincing the Queen and the Prime Minister of this grand project. By luck or fate, the Crimean War erupted just in time, becoming the canvas upon which Siger’s brain-child made its first stroke – a test run, so to speak. Its astounding success overcame the crown's initial scepticism and prompted the expansion of the project empire wide.  

There were no parliamentary hearings, no debates, and no bills passed, but in the quiet undercurrent of the government, the idea became reality.

Siger named the project Ordinem – a series of interconnected but independent chain of commands governing discrete individuals all over the empire. They answered to no one on the ground - not the colony’s governor, nor the local government, nor the regional regiments - but solely to the authorities in London. John Watson would one day make the medical analogy that the Ordinem had been designed to provide what the “autonomic nervous system” did for the human body. It'd work unnoticed in the background, constantly and steadily, ensuring our smooth functioning even when our body lay down to rest.

The agents of the Ordinem did what had to be done, linchpin actions which would trigger the dominos to topple in a direction favouring the interests of the Crown. The agents were hand-picked, sometimes in London, but often from the region where they would be activated, and they were trained, moulded into the weapons London needed them to be. Not all were killers, but most were at least effectively prepared to take action in worst-case scenarios.

As tribute to their status in the world, to their seeming insignificance, to their “inferior” sex, the agents called themselves The Others. The kitchen maids, the seamstresses, the secretaries and nannies. The flirty socialite, the severe spinster, the quiet nurse, and the stout midwife. Standing in the shadows of their husbands, their fathers, their brothers and their sons, they learned to thrive in the niche they were allowed, made peace with the dark, and turned their condemnation - their anonymity - into a weapon.  

The empire made use of the half of their assets that had once been so unjustly cast aside, and the result was more brilliant than what anyone had imagined.

But… perhaps I will take the time now to correct Dr Watson’s analogy. In my opinion, the Ordinem was not so much the ANS as it was the immune system. It is an essential part of our defence to be sure, but sometimes if the control over the system is broken or corrupted; the agents that defended the body against invader could most heinously destroy the very same body from the inside out.

Born in the Victorian age, Mycroft Holmes knew nothing about the medicine of immunology of course, but as he stood in the dim early morning light that November day in 1888, waiting for a final diagnosis of the empire he was appointed to protect, he felt acutely the symptoms of the illness that had taken hold. 

 _Something is rotten in the state of Denmark indeed_ , mused Mycroft.

Hurried footfalls drew his attention away from London’s skyline, and he turned in time to see Anthea appear at his door, strands of her dark hair breaking loose from beneath her hat pins and falling around her face, cheeks made rosy by the wind. 

She didn't have to speak. Mycroft knew.

"So, case closed then," he sighed, cranking his neck back tiredly and closing his eyes. In his younger years, he remembered nights like these were very easily endured – the lack of sleep and the nonstop mechanics of the mind posed no strain to him at all. Two years away from forty, Mycroft was not yet middle-age, but somehow the fragility of his human shell was already catching up to him. Longevity had never been a Holmes family gift.

Shaking his head, Mycroft shoved that thought away and focused his attention on the matter at hand.

"Lord Smallwood left a written confession, yes?”

“Yes, sir. Along with the personnel files of all the Others in the Ordinem,” Anthea nodded, tugging at the drawstring of her heavy cloak as if it’d suddenly become difficult to breath. When she had been dispatched with the discreet team of the arresting officers to the Smallwood residence, this was not the result she had hoped to deliver. There were few things in this world that plagued her quite as much as failure, especially if the party to which her services were indentured was Mycroft Holmes.

The girl's despondence did not go unnoticed by the man who had been her legal guardian for the better part of her adolescence.

Mycroft circled around his desk, took her lightly by the elbow and said, "Sit down, Austen. You’re half frozen. Shall I ring for some hot cocoa?"

"I'm not a child anymore, sir," she argued half-heartedly. Indeed, despite the hardship of her early years, her growth was not stunted. Soon to be two and twenty after the New Year, she was in all aspects a well-developed woman. But still... Anthea supposed that in Mycroft’s eyes, which first laid sight on her as a thin, grimy faced eleven-year old, she would always be a child.

An unexpected drink appeared in front of Anthea's nose.

"I know," Mycroft replied, and his lips tugged upwards the barest amount at his own attempt at levity. “Something stronger, then.” 

His ward looked into the expensive drink and crinkled her nose at the scent. Scotch had never been her favourite. Like her Italian mother, she much preferred sweeter wines. As a child, Anthea had been a picky eater, a habit she did not break from even as other edges of her personality had smoothened and refined to fit beneath her masterful poker face.

Huffing in exasperation that was partly teasing and partly fond, Mycroft set aside the drink, reached for the tea set and poured a steaming cup of her favourite drink. Once again, it seemed that he had already anticipated this, anticipated her.

“Cocoa it is.”

“Sir…” Anthea started tentatively, frozen hands curled around the warm china. ”Are you not….upset? I –” She frowned, pursing her lips as she mulled over her words. “I was slow. I’m sorry, sir. I should’ve been quicker. I heard the gunshot as I arrived. Had I just been faster –“

“Austen, we do not dwell on what we cannot change.” Mycroft’s voice was stern, but kind. “Should you feel that you were amiss in your conductance in any way, the only sensible course of action is to ensure to the best of your ability that the mistake is not repeated. That being said – it wasn’t your fault.” A pause. ”Now tell me, how is Lady Smallwood?"

"Shaken, and quite adamant that her husband is innocent. That he was driven to suicide not by guilt but by the aggressive nature of his persecution."

“Let her believe what she wants.” Mycroft gave a wiry laugh, moving to stand before the papers displayed on his bureau, where the freshly processed photographs of "Mary Kelly's" murder was placed at the dead centre in all its savage glory. Beside the pictures of her corpse, there was another photograph of her – whole, alive, smiling. A small annotation was clipped to the bottom left corner.

_Her Majesty’s Agent of the Ordinem._

A rogue agent. As it turned out.

Mary Kelly, real name Emma Uslowski, had never been a prostitute. Orphaned at a young age and found roaming the streets of Warsaw, she had been brought to England by the agent who happened upon her. The Ordinem clothed Emma, fed her, educated her and trained her, for the single purpose of making her into an asset. Not all agents could be used for combat, but Emma was raised in the life. She was malleable, impressionable, and ultimately exceeded every expectation.

Britain wanted a killer, and so they made one. The bodies of Annie Chapman, Mary Ann Nicols, Elizabeth Stride, and Catherine Eddowes, gave testament to that. Yet like Uslowki, they were not who they appeared to be either.

Chapman (born Joanna Svetlanova), Nicols (born Amara Cane), Stride (born Margaret-Lizabeth Singh), and Eddows (born Diya Akbar) were collectively known as “The Four”, the very first team Siger Holmes and his colleagues dispatched during the Crimean War against Russia. Together, the quartet helped to recruit and develop generations of agents, countless young women who greased the wheel in the empire’s massive machine.  

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the framework became unscrupulous, deviating from its founding principles. The interests of individuals replaced the interests of the nation, and the system failed.

_Father, you should have told me. You should have trusted me. Should have left your legacy in better hands. My hands…._

_I am your **son**. I would not have betrayed you._

During his life, Siger had held the position of the first Preceptor, and “The Four” were his closest disciples. When Siger died of encephalitis in 1865, Mycroft had been fifteen, and naturally his father’s legacy had not been entrusted to him. In fact, it was not until decades later, did the Ordinem's existence was made known to Mycroft. By chance or fate, his people discovered illegitimate dealings in multiple regions under British rule which traced back to the obsecure branches of the government that even he did not know. He pressed upon the Prime Minister to reveal the truth, and naturally what Mycroft wanted, he took. Before then, it had never been under his particular jurisdiction, but nevertheless, he regretted that he did not keep a keener eye on it. Trusting Smallwood’s leadership was clearly a mistake, and yet the Prime Minister was content to let the man investigate the organisation’s corruption internally, as if somehow Smallwood was immune to being part of the scandal. 

Mycroft, however, could not let the matter go. If the Ordinem had become incorrigible, then he’d rather burn it to the ground than to salvage any part of his father’s work that had been so sullied by his successors.  

Calling upon The Four to investigate was the logical decision. He met with them in late June, and he could still remember them standing before his bureau with their assignments in their hands, promising that they would get to the bottom of this case.

_“Your father was the only Preceptor we knew. Our allegiance had always been with him and with this nation. Of course, of course we’ll help you, Lord Holmes.”_

It is now November, and not a single one of them remained living. One might even say that as the commanding superior who had dredged up these four agents from their well-deserved and peaceful retirement and demanded that they wade in to a playing field with which they were no longer familiar, that Mycroft should be held partially accountable for their deaths.

But he was not the one who sliced their throats open. He was not the so-called “Jack the Ripper” – that title belonged only to Emma Uslowski. The young woman named “Mary Kelly”, lying in pieces in the Met’s morgue, she was the sociopath that slaughtered The Four in cold blood. No one could’ve fathomed that the monster had been hiding under their noses all along, mistakenly taken for a victim.

Mycroft knew, without a doubt, that the Met would never be able to make the right connections, not without knowledge of some of this empire’s greatest intelligence secrets, not without Sherlock Holmes. And for once, he was immensely glad his brother was off gallivanting abroad, consulting for a foreign party.

(…well, maybe if Mycroft had known that Sherlock was in fact vacationing in Montenegro and impregnating Irene Adler, then perhaps he wouldn’t have been as pleased.)  

The death of The Four revealed to Mycroft what he needed to know – that Smallwood was as culpable as he had suspected, and that the Ordinem had become rotten at the core.

 _“If a tooth needs to be pulled, then it must. It does one no good to leave it in its place.”_ Mycroft had made his sentiment abundantly clear to the Prime Minister and to the Queen.  The individual correspondence reports written by Svetlanova, Cane, Singh and Akbar provided proof that the crown could not dispute.   

_“Do what you must, Holmes. But quietly, for obvious reasons.”_

Emma Uslowski was a difficult woman to find; the Ordinem had trained her well, but Mycroft had taught Anthea better.

The Met had estimated Emma to be no more than twenty-five, and sure enough, the girl that Anthea had brought to Mycroft to be interrogated was not that much older than Anthea herself. Pretty too, with brown hair and big doe eyes.

 _“She was brought up in this life – this is all she knows. Give her a chance to redeem herself.”_ Sometimes Mycroft thought that perhaps he raised his ward to be too kind. He watched her become the woman she was - quick, sharp, loyal - yet it still surprised him when Austen did or said something that he would not otherwise expect from someone who grew up under his influence, like – say – Sherlock. “ _It’s Smallwood you want, and her testimony will ensure his incarceration. He is the mastermind; she is just his hammer, his weapon, and…weapons can be re-forged. Please, Mycroft.”_

Anthea may have saved Uslowski from the noose, but not from death. Before Mycroft could put into effect the immunity he had been prepared to offer her in exchange for her cooperation, Emma was silenced by Smallwood’s remaining hitmen. Somehow, her safe house had been discovered, and the agent who found her did to her tenfold what she had done to The Four… to the point where her remains were almost indistinguishable.

Mycroft surmised that Smallwood must’ve known her too well. As her mentor and superior, he would’ve been familiar with her habits and therefore was able to predict her hiding spot. If Emma’s confessions were to be believed, Smallwood had known just about _every_ aspect of his young student, no matter how much his wife denied it. 

During his life, Edward Smallwood was a quiet man of very few words, a frequenter of the Diogenes Club, and in terms of age, stationed amongst the ranks of Mycroft’s own mentors. Mycroft had never believed Smallwood to be the brightest of men, or the most ambitious, but… all men are capable of evil. Such is men’s nature. And Smallwood had certainly crossed the line, in more ways than one.

 _God, he was old enough to be her grandfather_ , thought Mycroft with barely concealed disgust.

The identity of the agent who silenced Uslowski remained unknown to them. It never occurred to Mycroft or Anthea that Emma had died not because of her potential to expose Smallwood, but because of what she had done to The Four, and that Smallwood had been innocent, at least on the account of Emma’s murder. Their blind spot had been Mary, the wild card hiding so close beneath their watch.

“So, sir, what should we do now?” Anthea asked.

“The investigation has come to an end – we report the findings to the Crown and clean up the mess the Ordinem left us,” sighed Mycroft, as if this whole business had been incredibly tedious.

“And the Met, what should we tell them?”

“Nothing. Lord Smallwood is dead. For his wife’s sake, we’ll leave his reputation intact. Without Sherlock, I doubt Scotland Yard will get very far – eventually, they will stop their futile efforts.”

Closing the case file, Mycroft stood up from his seat and held out his arm for his ward to take. “Come, Austen. Breakfast first, and then after, we have a long and arduous apology to make to a very old friend.”

And so the government man and his assistant walked away from the case of Jack the Ripper, believing the worst had been put to rest, but unfortunately, that was not to be. Despite what the Holmes brothers liked to believe, neither of their methods was infallible, and sometimes, very, very rarely, Mycroft Holmes could be wrong too.

 

**~ Present Time ~**

**July, 1896**

 

Lord Edward Smallwood was innocent; that much Mycroft was sure. As he had eight years ago, he found himself awake before dawn, with a glass of scotch and a troubled mind, sitting by the French windows of his study. It had been eight years in the making, but he felt that Lady Smallwood ought to be given the apology she was owed. He had visited her home yesterday to deliver the news that would exonerate Edward’s name, and she had let loose on him a torrent of rage.

 _“My husband wasn’t a saint. I know about the girls, about Mary Kelly – Emma. Edward was a lousy husband, there’s no denying it, but he was a law-bidding man, a good man. You see now, don’t you, how you’ve got it all wrong? My husband was an innocent, and you drove him to his death!”_ Elizabeth Smallwood’s tirade echoed in his mind _. “I don’t know what you had hoped to achieve by coming here, **Mycroft,** but if it is my forgiveness, you will never have it.”_

But Mycroft was not a child to be scolded. He returned Elizabeth’s fire with an icy smile that could burn just as effectively. If she were to be unreasonable, then he would not spare her any face.

 _“His death is not on me, Lady Smallwood. The Crown gave him powers he was not qualified to have. His own agency ran rampant before his eyes, his authority as The Preceptor usurped without his knowledge. His ignorance and lack of foresight made him the perfect patsy, and that’s what got him killed. If he’d been smarter, he would’ve stayed alive. After all what reason does an innocent man have to take his own life? It should not have escaped your attention, Elizabeth, that perhaps your husband was not so innocent_. _Perhaps evidence incriminating him was in the hands of the real culprit, evidence that would have ruined him and his kin, which they used to force him into false confession. A quiet suicide would leave his reputation intact, and ensure that his widow could retain his wealth and status. So the fact of the matter is, Lady Smallwood, your husband died for his family – for you – and not because of anything I or my agents may or may not have done_. ”  

_“You insolent, heartless –_

“Sir,” Anthea’s voice came from the door. She was still in her nightwear, with a large hand-crochet shawl thrown over her for modesty - not that she needed it in Mycroft’s presence. “You’ve not slept.”

Mycroft made a vague hand gesture, but his assistant understood it all the same. _I don’t need sleep._

Closing the door behind her, she approached him quietly, her bare feet barely making any noise on the carpet floor. Then slowly, she knelt down beside his chair and laid a hand on his armrest, not touching him.

Taking the drink from his hand, she chastised, “The doctors said no more drinking.”

Mycroft brushed off her concern with a petulant little scoff that meant _I know what the doctors said._

 _Do you?_ Anthea countered with an artful lift of her brow.

“You have not slept much either,” deduced Mycroft, changing the subject away from the argument that he knew he could never win.  

“I was sleeping,” denied Anthea.

“Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling does not count as sleeping. I could hear your thinking all the way down the hall.”

Anthea made a face, “Well pardon me sir, but it was your incessant brain-work that kept me up half the night. Mind, you were the one who had been thinking very loudly.” 

Somehow her little comments, delivered with half a smile and levity, could always brighten his mood. He didn’t know how she managed it, but he found himself smiling too.

_“She could make you very happy, you know.”_

The coils in his gut tightened as an uninvited thought intruded on their moment.

_“Mummy, please…not this again.”_

_“More importantly, she wants to – make you happy, that is.”_

_“I don’t…need her, at least not in that way.”_

There were names for what he was, ugly names – degenerate, sodomist, sexual deviant – but Mycroft had been honest with himself from a young age. He knew what he wanted and what he needed, what he could have, should have, and what he could not and should not…but Anthea…

_“But you **do** need her. Or else why would a girl like her be nearly thirty and still unspoken for? Don’t be selfish, my boy. If you cannot find it in you to keep her, then let her go, or she will become the subject of ridicule and derision. Or worse – pity. She has pride, our Austen. She would not stand for pity.” _

With his mother’s warnings kept close to heart, Mycroft watched the young woman with a gaze that was more than just analytical scrutiny. Sometimes he still saw in those pale eyes the bastard orphan he’d found in the attic apartment above the opera house in Milan.

_Sei mio papà?_

_No, signorina. Il mio nome è Mycroft Holmes._

She’d been eleven, and he was fourteen years her senior. Back then she had been just a child, and he was just a young man fulfilling a promise made to a colleague who’d passed. Yet, more and more he had come to realize that he’d grown dangerously dependent on his ward, to the extent that he would no sooner wish to part with her than he would a limb.

It was selfishness; there were no other ways to describe it. 

“What are we going to do about Sherlock? He’s going to figure it out eventually.”

Anthea’s voice broke through his mulling. Mycroft did not realise that she’d left his side and was now sitting across his desk.

“Sir?” She prompted again.

Ah yes, Sherlock. The most troublesome little brother a man could ask for, one who will never take orders, who will do exactly opposite as told, and who will never back down from a challenge. This wouldn’t be the first time Mycroft was kept up at night with worries over his sibling, and Anthea was all too familiar with it, for she practically grew up watching Sherlock tempt fate again and again while Mycroft sat in his office and brooded in the aftermath.

When Mycroft had been away at the Smallwood’s yesterday, Lestrade had arrived after supper, with his hat in his hand and a nervous tic beneath his eye, and had told Anthea that Sherlock had stolen the Met’s files on Jack the Ripper. He’d also reported that Sherlock had skipped out on dinner with his family to meet a mysterious “client”, whose identity eluded Lestrade.

_“Holmes told me not to involve Sherlock the first time around – is that still the case?”_

Anthea knew that if Mycroft had his way, Sherlock would be kept from investigating the Ordinem with a 20-yard pole.

The Others, as Siger had once built them to be, were relentless, methodical, and proficient in every manner. Once, they may have held back from harming civilians by their guiding principles, but such principles existed no more. If the Ordinem had been a beast on a leash, then it was safe to say that the leash was broken. Mycroft had tried to put down said beast eight years ago, by purging the entire Ordinem framework within the British Empire, but he had failed. Edward Smallwood was a puppet on strings, an unwitting fool, and the true Preceptor who had played them lurked in the shadows still. 

Godfrey Norton’s involvement enlightened Mycroft that like Moriarty’s network before them, the Ordinem was the new global criminal stronghold. The once weapon of the empire had transformed into a bomb buried in the belly of this nation. A cancer.

It was a deeply disturbing thought, for unlike Moriarty, the Ordinem came from Britain’s own. The Preceptor, whoever he was, knew the playing field inside and out. He knew Britain’s weaknesses and strengths….God knows how many lords, ministers and councilmen were in his pocket.     

The Four were trained assassins, better in the art of fighting than Sherlock could ever be, and yet the Ordinem had sent a killer who was able to cut them into shreds. Scarier yet, it had then sent another who’d butchered _that_ killer with even more unchecked brutality. Sherlock may believe himself invincible, and with John Watson by his side, he certainly did have an added layer of protection, but against the Others, the two of them were lambs for slaughter. As much as the idea was tempting on days when Sherlock grated on his last nerve, Mycroft would never send his brother to death’s door on a silver platter.

If he could help it, that is.

As it was, the cat was effectively out the bag. The moment Irene Adler had placed the Jack card on the table, Mycroft had known it would be impossible to bar Sherlock from what he had set his mind on.

Troubling indeed.

The elder Holmes did not know how he could possibly keep his little brother from falling deeper into the dark wet hole that was this disastrous case, especially since it landed so gaudily in his lap. At first, Mycroft had entertained the idea that perhaps a case would distract Sherlock from his perilous relationship with the Adler woman, but now he could see that neither were good options for the younger man. His only comfort in all of this was knowing that at least Sherlock _only_ had a file.

“He only has that one file, yes?”

As it was with most things, whatever Sherlock had, his older brother would have in both excess quantity and superior quality. Sherlock had a single Ripper file. Mycroft….well, Mycroft had a cabinet full, and judging from the way Anthea was looking at him, he had a feeling what she was about to ask of him. 

Anthea crossed her arms, “Forgive me sir, but would it not be better if Sherlock knew? He is investigating Jack the Ripper whether we like it or not. Is it not time for us to…bring him into the fold.”

“You know I could not explain the truth regarding those killings without divulging into secrets about The Ordinem and about The Others.”

Mycroft sighed, frustrated with this whole ordeal, and swivelled away from his companion’s bright, spirited eyes.

“Pure reason toppled by sheer melodrama - I believe that was Dr Watson’s diagnosis. My brother is a sentimental creature. He adored Father, and if he knew that someone had sullied our father’s good work, his life’s work… He could get himself killed.”

But Anthea could not be dissuaded, “Keeping him in the dark offers him no protection. That file at the Yard, while dismal to the untrained eye, is more than enough content for Sherlock to rip this investigation wide open.”

Mycroft did not speak for a moment, and when he did, his redirection alerted Anthea to another problem plaguing his mind, one which was infinitesimally tied to the investigation. 

“Then there is the matter of Irene Adler. What is her business in all of this?”

He leaned forward onto his elbows, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. “What is Norton’s? What is Aldenham’s?” He glanced up at his assistant. “What news have you collected on that front?”

“Adler’s statements were verified. The Norton’s enterprise did suffer significant losses lately – the ship of arsenals commissioned by us being one of many. And Norton is not the only party under attack. Other crime families have experienced similar incidences. The poisoning of Zanzibar’s sultan also seemed to have been directed by an unknown third party, which may very well be the Ordinem. The only thing I don’t understand is why? The Ordinem has succeeded in escaping our attention for so many years, why make a statement now? What’s changed?”

Mycroft listened and pondered. Anthea was right, of course; these were a strange series of events. Granted, it was not uncommon that crime organisations, like their governmental counterpart, waged war against each other, for simple reasons such as a greater piece of the black market share or dominance in a particular region of land. But these so-called “wars” happened bilaterally, and were often contained between two competing families. It had never been that one organised crime group declared battle on several competitors all at once. One force against many – it just didn’t make tactical sense.

Unless…

A thought occurred to Mycroft, suddenly but quietly in the back of his mind, like a spark that ignited and illuminated the darkness.

“Irene Adler is neck deep in a scheme; if Henry Gibbs is not an accomplice then he is a potential victim. Trace Anthony & Co’s financial activity for the last fiscal year and have eyes and ears on the Aldenham residence at all times; I want to know exactly what ties Aldenham has to Norton. Our people in America – are they still active?”

“They could be at a moment’s notice,” responded Anthea.

“Good, then it’s time we pay a little closer attention to Mr Norton.”

 “Sir?” Anthea frowned. “We’ve normally left Norton alone. His business poses no direct –”

“-threat to the empire, I know, and usually I’m rather appreciative of Norton’s cooperation in some transactions, but that was before I knew he was in bed with Irene Adler.”

A poor choice of words, except it may very well be true that Adler and Norton’s collusion mixed business with pleasure. Anthea could tell that the elder Holmes’s line of thought had once again slipped from its focus on the interest of the nation to the needs of his family.

 _She wants you dead. I saw it in her eyes,_ Anthea wanted to say.

Sherlock had spent the last seven years of his life believing Irene Adler had forsaken both his affection and their son, that she had avoided him and his attempt to reconcile, but that…well that wasn’t exactly true.

 

**~ Five Years Ago ~**

**December, 1891**

 

Six months after Sherlock fell to his “death” at Reichenbach Falls, his young widow was informed by the town doctor that her two-year-old son would not survive past the night. Molly had been inconsolable, but at half past midnight, a blizzard had swept in and blown out the power city-wide. By the time Mrs Hudson returned upstairs with candles, James had disappeared from his room.  

It took three days for them to locate him, in a small inn at the edge of London, being slowly but surely nursed back to health. That was the only reason why Mycroft didn’t storm the place immediately. Whatever Irene Adler had done, it was helping James, and Mycroft decided he could wait until the child was truly out of danger before taking him home.

Five days - that was how long the mother and son had spent together, but the damage had been done.

The innkeeper was given a generous sum of money to keep quiet about the single woman staying there with her son, but Mycroft’s people could be very convincing when they wanted to be. If a glacial glare from The Government himself couldn’t get the more stubborn citizens to spill their guts, words such as “accessary after the fact”, “conspiracy to kidnap” and “harbouring fugitives” certainly did.

The innkeeper’s wife led the way for their entourage, and as she was about to knock a child’s laugh could be heard from within, followed by a woman’s soft coo.

“She is a delusion criminal, not that boy’s mother. Unless you’d like to be jailed, I suggest you do as asked,” Anthea uttered a low warning into the woman’s ear. “Now knock.”

The innkeeper’s wife didn’t appear convinced, but she obeyed nevertheless. “Madam I’ve got the tea you asked for.”

Irene still had a smile on her face when she opened the door, but it froze in an instant, the lingering laughter in her blue eyes punctured by a sharp flash of panic. Anthea saw the exact moment when Irene’s hand twitched at her side, and she knew that the woman wished for the feel of a pistol there.

Suddenly, she spun on her heel, dashing back into the living room and picked up James from the rug, where he sat snacking on a biscuit.

What happened afterwards was nothing short of a crime.

“Please don’t do this.”

Irene Adler was someone who never begged. Not under an executioner’s blade. Not at the parting with one whom she cared for the most. Not when she felt ripped apart by the life she brought to this world. And not even when she laid dying that early summer of 1889, in an alley between two buildings on fire, cremating in a fiery hell with the rest of downtown Boston.

Never.

In her carefully designed and meticulously structured life, she had never permitted herself to be vulnerable enough to warrant an act that was in her opinion the most demeaning of them all. Her pride, she held over her life. Some would call it foolishness, and it was perhaps it was, but be that as it may, the Woman indulged herself with this one allowance, because pride, for the longest time, was the only thing she had in which she found any worth. 

_Do you expect me to beg?_

_Yes._

“Please.”  

Of course there was that one exception - and if one were to ask her to clarify whether she meant the incident or the man, she would tell you it was irrelevant. To her they were one and the same. And it was just so…damning… that whatever power the late father had over her, his only son would possess the same - a fact of which the child’s uncle was most certainly confident.

She held tightly onto James, pressing her cheek against his temple as she soothed him with a gentle hand rubbing circles into his back. Standing there in simple clothes, sleeves of her blouse rolled up to her elbows, her hair half-undone, dark tresses spilling around her shoulders, Irene appeared incredibly young. Vulnerable.

People always remarked how uncannily James took after Sherlock in looks, but that was only because no one had ever seen the boy with Irene, because if they had, they would’ve realised that the resemblance between the Woman and her son was astounding.

Two pairs of eyes the same shade of steel blue stared at Mycroft. One tearful and confused, and the other mutinous and determined.

Anthea often wondered if his conviction wavered at all in face of that, and if it didn’t, how it was possible that he could be so unmoved when she herself was left indisputably overwhelmed with sympathy. She’d had a mother once, and she remembered the day they were separated. Whether that separation was caused by death (as it had been for her) or by man (as James was bound to be), Anthea knew that it was but a minor distinction.

For once, she was glad to be standing behind Mycroft, for if he had seen her face then, he would’ve been disappointed by her weakness.

“Unhand my nephew, Miss Adler, and this can all end very civilly,” said Mycroft, the threat in his tone barely concealed.

“No.”

Mycroft nodded and gestured for his men to take action.     

Large, muscular hands encased in black leather gloves yanked at Irene’s shoulders and arms, loosening the hold she had around the toddler who began to cry. His cheeks, still covered in little spots, grew redder under exertion as he cried, fat tears rolling down to his chin. The boy wailed and shrieked, simultaneously kicking and shying away at the strangers trying to separate them, even though the woman to whom he desperately clung had been a stranger to him not a week ago. But… perhaps children had a way to know, instinctively, biologically, the familiarity of a parent.

The men grew impatient and then embarrassed, that they could not break a thin-boned woman from her sickly child. There was a loud smack as one of them delivered a blow to the side of her head. Grunting, another aimed a strong kick to the back of her legs, and her knees landed on the floor with a thud that echoed like defeat.

“Mycroft -” Irene was effectively cut off by the sickening crack of her wrist as one man tried to rip her hand away from James.

Reflecting back on this moment, Anthea told herself that she had not heard Irene cry, that her voice did not waver and break, that she had not devolved into a desperate, doleful mess in front her dead lover’s brother, the one with the stone-cold face and even colder intentions. Mycroft stepped forth, pausing to give her a look that could almost be interpreted as pity, and plucked James from her arms.

There was no telling if knowing that Sherlock had been alive all along would’ve encouraged Irene to let go or hold on tighter.

“Sherlock is dead,” Irene gasped out, when she finally regained her breath, which for those first few moments after her son was removed from her arms, threatened to never return. Her body trembled like she was consumed by a great fever. Anthea watched her slump forward onto her palms, her arms shaking in their effort to hold herself up, as though her muscles would leak into nothingness through the pores of her broken skin.  

Irene stared down at her fingers, which had been broken along with her wrist during the struggle. She blinked slowly, confused by the sight of her injuries because she could hardly register the pain. What she felt was much deeper, much more visceral and it extended beyond the flesh and bone. Raising her head, she scowled through her tears, “His father is dead. Why would you do this - you don’t want him. Why couldn’t you just let me keep him? Just let me keep him…”

“You had your chance.”

“You _know_ that I _didn’t._ ”

Muddled, Anthea looked to Mycroft for answers, but he was the perfect image of apathy, which wasn’t an easy feat, considering he had a wiggling, screaming toddler in one arm.  

Mycroft tossed Irene his signature mirthless smile, as friendly as a double-edged knife. “Now, Miss Adler, I really must thank you for saving James’s life. I don’t know how you did it - even the doctors were giving up hope. So. Thank you.” 

There was zero gratitude in his voice.

“I’m his mother,” Irene stated firmly, except it wasn’t a statement. It was a threat, one that Anthea heard loud and clear, and assumed that Mycroft did too.

“No. You’re not. You’re just his dead father’s whore.”

His words had even Anthea cringing internally; she could only imagine how painfully they fell on Irene’s ears.

“Goodbye Miss Adler,” the Ice Man bid farewell to the woman who was his brother’s could’ve-been. His mock courtesy was the final blow, and he delivered it with insulting nonchalance.

“Oh and…Merry Christmas.”

 

 

**~ Present Time ~**

**July, 1896**

 

 

Anthea could recall with perfect clarity James’s broken wails as he had reached desperately over his uncle’s shoulder towards his mother.

His first word had been a loud vehement protest – _that_ in itself should’ve been a cosmic sign, if they were at all the superstitious type.

_“NO!!”_

His second word had followed a second later, in the form of a blood-hurdling screech for the person he’d been missing his whole life, with whom he had briefly reunited, but who was once again being unfairly ripped from him.

_“Mama!! Mamaa!”_

“Don’t let her make a scene,” Mycroft had instructed to his subordinates. James had thrashed hysterically, bare feet kicking into his uncle’s ribcage furiously as he tried and failed to claw his way over his shoulder.

Anthea did not know what had prompted her to close her hand around those little ones outstretching, but she did remember pretending to feel nothing as the men behind her restrained Irene and smothered the sound of her heartbreak.

If Sherlock learned what they had done in his absence – god, she did not wish to imagine it.

As they’d turned to leave, Anthea had been the only one who turned back to look at Irene, sleeves torn, wrist broken. Their eyes met just as a shattering noise rose from the depth of the Woman, a noise which Anthea hadn’t known anyone was capable of making. It sounded nothing short of something dying…

Breath shaking, she had torn her eyes away, and it wasn’t until five years later at Aldenham’s ball that they’d meet again.  She had seen Irene standing there on the front steps of Lord Gibbs’s manor, adorned in diamonds and rubies and donned in that blood red gown, bidding the guests goodnight.  Their gazes had locked, much like they had before, and when Irene had bestowed her a calm slow smile that Anthea had only ever seen on Mycroft’s face, she had known that they’d made a mistake. 

She thought back to that Christmas morning at the inn, how black gloves had pressed bruises into white skin trying to muffle the terrible scream. She had believed it to be a sign of despair,  but in fact it had been a declaration of vengeance.  

A war cry.

That woman was trouble incarnate, and whilst Anthea bore her sympathy, that alone could not alter her allegiance, especially if it was sympathy for the devil. After all was said and done, Anthea knew which side she fought for, and whom she had to protect.

_Tread carefully Miss Adler, because if I have to kill you, I will._

Anthea looked to Mycroft and watched him sigh, leaning back against his chair. Perhaps he’d come to the same conclusion as his assistant, because there, in his voice, was an almost inconceivable trace of regret. “I put her in his path. Try as I might to correct my mistake, there's no stopping it. She is a reality I made real, one which I can no longer afford to ignore.”

Sherlock had thought himself so clever, but his brother knew exactly why it’d taken him so long to weed out Moriarty’s web. Three years… the excessive liberty Sherlock had taken during his journey did not go unnoticed by the elder Holmes, who had quickly realised that his brother dearest had set out for two missions instead of one.

He’d wanted to find her; he couldn’t let her go.

And Adler, once she’d known that he was out there (how she’d found out was still a mysterious), she’d begun to lay down crumbs for Sherlock to track, little clues she’d planted all over the world, which Mycroft with a vigilant eye, had cleaned up and destroyed. His decision to keep them apart had been guided by the conclusion he'd drawn after closely examining the costs and benefits. As much as Sherlock had strived to retrieve the love that he'd lost, Mycroft had had no doubt in his mind that his little brother could survive the indefinite separation. Once his self-imposed exile had come to an end, he'd return to a home where his support system had been waiting for him. He had his family, his friends, his Work, and even his pseudo-colleagues at the Yard, whom had grown to rely and respect him over the years. He didn't need her anymore. The Woman had been an addiction that Mycroft believed Sherlock needed to overcome at all cost. Since James's birth, time had dampened Sherlock's obsession - his passion (ugh) - for The Woman; the fire had run its course and existed only as mere flickers and charred ember. After The Fall, knowing that there had stood a chance that Sherlock and Irene could reunite, Mycroft could not bear to let his brother fall into his old ways, or to let that woman blow the flickers back into a flame. Thus he had to extinguish them, before they could ever burn through his little brother.

Irene had broken Sherlock’s heart, a heart that for whatever reason she was looking to mend, but for the sake of the family, Mycroft would rather that it stayed broken.

_She wants me dead. I saw it in her eyes._

_I know. Chi ha fatto il male, faccia la penitenza 2._

Anthea leaned forward, reaching across his desk, and enclosed his hand with hers. Her grip was firm and resolute.

“Tell him.”

This cat and mouse game needed to end; answers had been owed for too long. Regrettably, this would mean that repercussions of Mycroft’s actions would be unstoppable, but a part of him was curious to see how it would unfold.

“Yes, my dear, I believe I shall.”

Mycroft reached for the drink that Anthea had set aside, and raised it in a mock toast to the universe that was hell-bent on making his life difficult.

“Let the chips fall where they may.”

 

~~~

 

“Will you have time to come to the morgue later?”

It was the first and only thing he’d said to her since dawn. Sherlock had been silent all morning: rose early, called for a bath, and took his breakfast and tea in his study. Something was on his mind, and Molly had long learned to stop inquiring after things he would never share. Ever since yesterday evening, when he left abruptly during dinner to see a client, Sherlock had been acting out of sort, starting with the fact that he returned from his meeting bearing an appetite that most definitely had nothing to do with food.

It ’d been ages since Molly had woken up this sore, which was unsurprising given that she was practically ambushed by the detective who had gone from disinterested to insatiable without pre-emption. When Mrs Hudson had come in the morning and seen the state of their sheets, she’d tutted a happy “well then,” and Molly had been too embarrassed not to blush.

But despite what had been an eventful night, she had still woken up alone, and the side where Sherlock had been when she’d fallen asleep, thoroughly exhausted, had been cold and empty.

“Molly.”

She snapped her thought to the present, and looked up at her husband’s reflection in her vanity mirror, propped by the door waiting for her response. He was dressed and groomed, his top hat under one arm, clearly ready to head out for the day. Downstairs, John could be heard talking to Mrs Hudson.

Morgue. Right

“Yes, I could stop by. Is there something in particular you need?”

“Another pair of eyes. John is good, but he’s a field doctor. This case requires a more specialised expertise, and Anderson is definitely out of his depth. I was hoping you’d be interested.”

Molly set down her hairbrush, turning around to face him fully. “What case?”

Donning his hat, Sherlock grinned and answered cryptically, “A fabulous one.”

With a swirl of his coattail, the man was gone.

As her husband, one would think Sherlock was a constant in her life, but to Molly, he was a reoccurring guest at best. Eight years – and yet she didn’t know him enough to write a pamphlet.

_That’s rather sad, Mags._

There was a voice in her head that she couldn’t shake. A voice she missed very dearly and very constantly.

Picking up the hairbrush again, Molly took a moment to relish the feel of its white jade handle, her fingers stroking the back made of ivory and trimmed by sterling. Beautiful to the eye perhaps, but cold in her hand.

_You could be happy with him._

_Yes I know, but I’m beginning to think that I don’t want to be._

It was in her father’s lab at Cambridge, one early spring day of ’79, that she first had laid her eyes on Sherlock. She’d been fifteen, and he twenty-two. Her father was his supervising professor mentoring him through his PhD in organic chemistry. She still recalled vividly how the afternoon sun filtering through the grimy corners of the laboratory window had danced on his headful of curls, and in the sunlight, strands of his hair had shone like copper wires, so much that Molly had thought she might just be a little bit smitten.

 

_“Sherlock, I’d like you to meet my youngest, Margaret. My dear, this is one of my students, Sherlock Holmes.”_

_Those grey-green eyes landed on the spine of the book peeking out from her leather bag: Gray's Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Clinical Practice. “Which chapter is your favourite, Miss Hooper?”_

_“Miss Hooper is my sister, Mr Holmes. You can call me Molly.”_

_“Not Margaret?”_

_“Margaret is my mother,” she smiled. “But to answer your question. Osteology.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Because the living aren’t the only ones who could speak.” It was her nature to be truthful, to wear her heart on her sleeve, and the young man that stood before her had a pair of eyes that saw through everything. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mr Holmes?”_

_“Sherlock, please.” He smiled back, bending slightly to take her hand. A gentleman would’ve kissed it, but Molly was happier that he had opted for a firm handshake instead, one which he would have given to any peer._

There had been a curious glint in her father’s eyes, a glint that Sherlock may have missed, but Molly surely had not. She’d learned later that day that Sherlock was the younger brother of Lord Mycroft Holmes, the Marquis of Windermere. The effort with which her mother had tried to keep her tone of voice nonchalant as she passed on this information alerted to Molly that something had transpired to which she had not fully cottoned on. 

Cambridge had opened its local examinations to women in 1863, and in 1869, Emily Davies had founded a college for women at Cambridge. Despite these advances, it would not be until after the Great War that Oxford admitted women to full status and degree, and not until after the Second World War that Cambridge followed suit. For the curious and intelligent child that Molly had been in 1879, attending a co-ed university in her home country was a dream to never be achieved. This setup, while it had frustrated her, had not stopped her from pursuing her education with vigour. Degree or no degree, her father’s position as both an alumnus and tenured faculty member had allowed her some leeway and access to the libraries and facilities at the university. On summer days when the heat forced her out of the sun, her favourite place to be had been the cool little corner in the science library.     

She’d loved the shade between the tall aisles and the scent of old paper and wood. Walking with her fingers tracing along the spines of the books, over the names of the authors whom she envied, she wished for a day when her own name could join those on the shelves.

It had been a little over three months after her first encounter with Sherlock when she’d decided to make an afternoon out of some quiet reading time with a book from the physical and mathematical sciences section. It had never been her favourite area of study, but well…she liked to diversify once in a while.

 

_Theory of Heat by Josiah Willard Gibbs….The Dynamics of Combustion by M.L De Vignoelles – interesting. Molly reached for the book._

_”Oh not that silly thing,” a voice spoke behind her through a trickling laughter._

_Molly spun around, startled. A woman stood there watching her with a kindly smile and a knowing spark in her grey-green, almost jade-like eyes.  A crisp white parasol supported her balance the way a cane might a gentleman, and she was dressed in fine, black muslin and expensive silk dyed a rich forest green. Her neatly coiffured hair, dark and luscious, almost raven, had streaks of grey running along her left temple. Everything about her had given Molly the impression that she ought to check herself and do a curtsey or something._

_“Uhm…” Molly looked down at the book in her hand. “I – uh – well have you read it? The Dynamics of Combustion?”_

_“Countless times, I assure you. I would not be quite at liberty to pass judgment it if I had not read it, now would I?” She took the book and placed it back on the self. “What is your name, child?”_

_“Molly. Molly Hooper, madam.”_

_“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Molly. I’m Violet.” The woman gave Molly another mysterious smile and said, “It’s so refreshing to see a young feminine mind interested in something outside of ribbons and bonnets. If you are serious in your intent to study the physical sciences, my dear, may I suggest Gibbs or perhaps Maxwell to start? Then if you are still interested, you may have a go at De Vignoelles. Mind, it’s a bit outdated.”_

All her life, her father had been her only advocate, and the encounter with Violet had introduced to Molly her first female peer in the academics – a kindred spirit.

Little had she known that M.L De Vignoelles had been a pseudonym used to protect the author’s true identity, and that this serendipitous meeting had in fact been strategically planned.

Violet had found Molly to be exactly as Sherlock described, and exactly as she had imagined. She’d lived up to her father’s praises in every manner, and it had been very clear to Violet why Dr Hooper had so doted on this daughter. During his life, Siger had had many friends of all walks of life, and Avery Hooper had been one of them. Violet had remembered when Siger still lived that he and Avery had once laughed and joked that since he had two sons and Avery two daughters that they ought to just marry them to each other and be saved from the messy business of finding them respectable partners in the future.

Seeing the girl in the flesh and charmed by her sweet disposition and inquisitive nature, Violet had thought she’d do very well as a Holmes woman. Sherlock was like fire – crackling, untamed – but Molly was water, soft perhaps, but with hidden strength, full of persistence and resilience. 

Like Violet, Dr Hooper was content with the match, and his wife, Mrs Hooper was equally, if not more, enthused.

_Lord Holmes – that is Mycroft - is unmarried.  A widower, I believe. Word is that he had a wife, a sickly daughter of another noble family who didn’t even last a year. No children, obviously._

_I’ve no idea what you’re getting at, Mum._

_Sherlock is the heir presumptive, and his mother the Lady Dowager likes you very much. You understand what this means, my dear girl._

_Mum!_

Even as she had blushed and denied it, a part of Molly – a blossoming curiosity in her vibrant adolescent mind – had bashfully entertained a future where she would be surrounded by many young persons with raven curls and wonderful gem-like eyes.

 _But you are so young_ , her parents had explained. _Only fifteen. Let’s wait. There’s plenty of time._

So for two years Molly had waited. While she had tended to her own learning at home, Sherlock had worked towards his degree. By the time he’d submitted his dissertation, Molly had somehow allowed the world to convince her that this man would become her future.

If Molly had been a heroine in one of the romance novels that her sister loved so much, Sherlock would be the proud but good-hearted gentleman who’d win her hand, heart and soul. They would live, love, and that would be that….

Except, that was not her life. That was her sister’s life. Her sister, hot-headed and impulsive, who at the age of 21, married a German lawyer and moved with him to Philadelphia.  Molly loved her sister, but their differences made them night and day, and this distinction could not be more clearly illustrated than by their individual experience of courtship. Her sister’s marriage made little sense, but it was one that burst at the seams with affection and one that ended up lasting 70 years. Molly, on the other hand, had a betrothed, who instead of sweeping her off her feet, had set it in his mind to rebel against their engagement till the very end.

He never got a chance to, however, for just weeks after Sherlock had earned his PhD in 1981, Avery Hooper died.

A ruptured aortic aneurysm. Bled the entirety of his blood supply into his abdominal cavity in seconds. There was nothing anyone could’ve done. 

Her father’s will had dictated that his body be donated to science, and in the damp and draughty mortuary at Cambridge where the Hooper family said goodbye to him, Molly had recalled her father’s favourite words to her. _Someday, Molly, you’ll find your place in this world, and you’ll know it, when the time comes._

In every way that her mother had kept her between the tightly laced bounds of Victorian etiquettes, her father had been exactly the opposite. In him, Molly had found her most loyal advocate, who indulged her inquisitive naivety and supported her every endeavour in a world in which she was told she didn’t belong.

She had held his hand, cold and limp, kissed his icy cheek, and thanked him for this last gift.

 _I’m going to medical school, and I don’t care what you have to say! I’ve heard back from the dean at the University of Paris.  He says if I go to Paris and complete my baccalaureate, then I can apply to study there in their school of medicine_.  

Predictably, her mother had been livid.

_Paris – completely unacceptable! If you must insist on this ridiculous course of action, then you must do so here, in London. There is a school for women –_

_Exactly! I don’t want to go to a school “for women”, as if we’re not good enough to sit amongst men! Father – Papa left me my living. He would’ve wanted this for me. He would’ve supported me. I’m. Going._

At the very least, she had Violet’s blessing.

 _“In this world, a woman can rely on very little. Our husbands and our fathers may love us, but they are only mortal and they can leave so easily._ _Chérie, rien ne peut pas t’arrêter, si tu y habitues ton esprit 3. "_

_"But Sherlock –"_

_"Sherlock sera ici quand tu reviens. Paris est ton rêve, et nous n'abandonnons jamais nos rêves 4." _

On the ship to France, so entrenched in her own grief, Molly had not been able to spare any part of herself to think of Sherlock. She had not known how he’d reacted to the suspension of their budding engagement, only that he had taken up boarding with a young soldier recently returned from Afghanistan, an army doctor named John Watson.

Paris had been a different world. Another life. Her days had been filled with books and diagrams, dissections and experiments and endless fascination with the pathological biome. Her nights, in contrast, had had music and dancing, wine and ale, fiddles and ballads and laughter. In Paris she hadn’t thought about marriage, or children, or Sherlock. In Paris and in the loneliness of her schooling Molly had found her freedom and something more that she had never expected.

Violet was right. Being a Frenchwoman, she must’ve known how Paris would’ve seemed to young Molly a dream, a beautiful dream. But life…life had a way of waking you up.

“Yoohoo. Good morning.”

It took a moment to fully extract herself from the depth of her reminiscences, but when she did, she made sure the door of her memory locked tight behind her, letting nothing seep through.

“Mary,” Molly smiled in greeting, extending a hand towards her friend. “Where is Annabel?”

“Sally took her and James to the library. Said something about making a day out of it. As long as they are doing something productive with their time and not causing trouble, I figured it’d be all right.”

“You could always get a governess.”

“So could you, and yet here we are, still rearing our spawn by ourselves,” Mary sighed dramatically, before giving her friend a sly smile “It is nearly 9 o’clock and your hair is still undone. Late night or busy morning?” She teased as she took the brush from Molly’s hand – “here, let me” – and proceeded to arrange her hair.

“Oh god, have you been speaking to Mrs Hudson?”

“Well, she wasn’t exactly subtle about it,” Mary laughed, clearing her throat to imitate the housekeeper. “'Between you and me, Mrs Watson, I’m glad that boy is finally putting his heart in the right place’ – and she wiggled her eyebrows you know in the way she does.”

Molly groaned and pretended to smile. She didn’t elect to tell Mary about the empty bed in the morning, or about Sherlock’s silence. She certainly didn’t mention anything about the very faint scent of perfume lingering on Sherlock’s hand and along the collar of his shirt.

He would never be unfaithful. Never.

In many ways, Sherlock could be considered a good man and even a doting husband. Indisputably, he made sure that his spouse was provided for with a good home, a comfortable living, and fineries that many a wife would want. He set no expectations of her, and asked nothing of her in return. From the start, his actions made clear to Molly that there was nothing that she could offer which the detective did not already have. Not even children.

Somehow he’d managed even procreation on his own. Well, not _literally_ on his own, obviously, just…without her participation.

In her moments of self-doubt, she’d reprimand herself that there must be something wrong with her. Sure, they were not often intimate, but their marriage had been consummated. Other ladies could get pregnant at the drop of hat, and yet she… 

_I have James. He is mine, and no one can take him from me, and that’s enough._

It wasn’t that Sherlock outright rejected the idea of having more children, but he definitely didn’t make it his objective to achieve anything towards that end. Molly could count on one hand the number of times in a year the nocturnal activity between her husband and herself escalated to more than just sharing space and blankets. She cherished the mornings when she’d wake up with him still lying next to her, and not already up and about and wreaking havoc upon the world.  Those mornings were a rarity, and Molly cherished them for the tenderness they’d share and the conversation they’d make, and it would almost seem as if they were a normal couple. Almost.

And then, there were _those_ nights. Every now and then, without prompt or reason, Sherlock would shift over to her side of the bed and very gently spoon up against her, one arm over her waist, his hand skimming along her forearm until his fingers found her pulse. He would never proceed further, simply allowing himself to fall asleep like that without offering a single word of explanation. 

Molly didn’t like those night, not because she was ungrateful for the rare sign of affection, but because Sherlock on those night would be…different. However scant their physical relationship may be, Sherlock was always a thorough and considerate lover. His fingers and lips knew her: they knew exactly how to touch, how to kiss, how to interplay between caress and bite and nip, but on those nights, when he’d silently hold her, his touch would feel unfamiliar, as though his fingers had forgotten who she was, as though he was embracing another woman. 

She knew by now that there were some parts of her husband that he may never feel ready to give her, parts that she could never reach, parts…that already belonged to someone else.

“Hey, what is the matter?” Mary must’ve detected her moroseness, because she squeezed her shoulders and leaned down to look at her. “Molly, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she lied quickly. “It’s just…well, Sherlock asked me to go to the morgue later. I haven’t done an actual post-mortem in so long; I’m a bit nervous”

“Is it for the case? Dreadful business,” said Mary, putting the last pin in Molly’s hair.

“Do you know what happened?”

“Did he not tell you? God, not even to warn you? Typical. Yesterday a man was murdered in Kensington, most brutally murdered. The police believe it may be the work of Jack the Ripper.”

“Jack the Ripper??” Molly whipped around. “Are you certain?”

Mary nodded, “At least that’s what I've been told.”

_Jack the Ripper – ha! There is no Jack the Ripper. Emma Uslowski, she was Jack the Ripper. I killed her with my bare hands. I killed Jack the Ripper. So one could say, I am Jack the Ripper too._

_I shouldn’t have killed her._

_I shouldn’t have…_

Addison swore when she became Mary Watson that she would never turn back to the life she left behind. She had been one of The Others, yes, but that life was over. She had John and Annabel, and had no desire to be anything other than ordinary. But The Four had been her mentors, and Lizabeth and Diya especially were like the mothers Mary never had, so when she discovered what had happened to them, she took action.

 _Emma deserved what she got_ , Mary reminded herself, _and she deserved to die._

“But you’ll do fine, Molly. You’re an excellent pathologist. Way better than Anderson.”

That gave Molly a real chuckle. “You’ve set the bar quite low, Mary.”

“Well, it’s true.” Mary laughed. “Oh I almost forgot –“She withdrew a letter card from her pocket. “This came for you and Sherlock at the door, I told Mrs Hudson I’d bring it up.”

“Oh,” Molly raised her eyebrows in surprise as she recognised the handwriting. “It’s from Mummy.”

“What does it say?”

 

_My dears,_

_Since the weather is good and summer is finally upon us I bid you to come visit me this Saturday at the manor. I have arranged for a small garden lunch to be served, and have invited a few friends as guests. Our cousins, the Gibbses are of course included, as I am intrigued to meet this Miss Wolfe who has all the ladies of the court talking. It’d be so good for you to join us, for I long to see you all and James especially._

_Bisous,_

_Mummy._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violet's full name is Violet Marcelline Lucille Holmes, nee De Vignolles. Hence the pseudonym M.L De Vignolles. 
> 
> Translation:  
> 1\. Are you my father? / No, Miss. My name is Mycroft Holmes.  
> 2\. What you reap is what you sow.  
> 3\. Nothing can stop you if you put your mind to it.  
> 4\. Sherlock will be here when you return. Paris is you dream, and we never give up on our dreams.


	11. X

Sometimes ago, by means I’d rather not say on paper, I obtained a fragmented notebook which turned out to be the personal journal of Molly Hooper. I will continue to refer to her by her maiden name because despite all the legal documents placing her as Margaret H. Holmes, she never changed the signature in her private diary. In it, the entries were dated from April of 1896 to roughly November, though the ink in the second half of the notebook was largely washed out and illegible. An entry on Wednesday July 8th, 1896 captured my attention as researcher and historian, because this is the date, through triangulation of multiple data sources, that I believe marked the official beginning of the end of the Ripper mysteries and her marriage to Sherlock Holmes.

Dr. Hooper described July 8th as a humid and muggy day, on which she was called to The City of London Cemetery at Manor Park, where the graves of Ripper victims Mary Ann Nicols and Catherine Eddowes were being excavated. She was in the company of her friend Mary Watson, who she noted in her journal as “unusually quiet and becoming increasingly pale the closer the cabriolet approached the cemetery.”

What happened next is as follows.

“Mrs. Holmes!” a constable greeted them at the gates, a bit flushed from the heat and possibly nerves.  Molly recognized him. Dimmock, his name was. “Apologies for summoning you on such a hot day, but the detective inspector was adamant.”

“Quite all right, Constable. It’s my pleasure. Who is the coroner associated with this case?”

“At the present it’s Mr. Anderson, madam.”

At the look of displeasure on her friend’s face, Mary leaned in and whispered, “Can you believe they’d let Philip run the morgue? The man has experience to be sure, but he’s not a doctor. Is it truly so painful for the male ego to employ a female pathologist?”

Molly’s lips thinned and she whispered back, “Such is the world we live in, I’m afraid.” In a louder voice, she addressed Dimmock again and made a motion towards the rows and rows of endless tombstones, “It’s not usual that I am called to a cemetery, seeing that autopsies generally precede the burial. My husband mentioned that I am expected at the morgue, has there been a new development in the case?”

“Not to alarm you ladies but given the way our most recent victim was killed, it’s possible that this case may have some connections to Jack the Ripper. We haven’t managed to track down the families of the original victims, but Mr. Holmes managed to get an expedited warrant from the court to exhume the graves.”

“Graves? Plural? How many bodies are they planning to re-examine?” Mary asked.

“All of the canonical Ripper victims, madam,” explained Dimmock hesitantly, as if he’d perchance offend the feminine sensitivity. What rubbish.

“You needn’t be so cautious around us, Constable,” Mary chuckled. “We’re wives of two positively ridiculous men; I very much doubt there’s much that would ‘alarm’ Mrs. Holmes and me at this point.”

Dimmock flushed – although it could have been just the heat – and kept his mouth shut.

The cemetery ground was still wet from the rain during the night, so by the time the party arrived at the grave site, the hem of Molly and Mary’s petticoats were smudged in mud and their summer shoes were unsalvageable. Still, Molly appeared quite content to be invited to “the boys’ game”, while behind her, the usually chipper Mrs. Watson maintained her distance.

“Good morning, gentlemen.”

There was a rumble of _good morning, Mrs. Holmes_ chorusing amongst the policemen, not unlike a class of schoolboys greeting their pretty governess. John and Lestrade dipped their hats courteously, while Sherlock didn’t bother to do anything at all. Anderson stood to the side with his hands in his pockets, no doubt already on the defensive.

“Who is this one, then?” Molly inquired as she peered into the open grave with interest.

“Eddowes. Nichols is over there, and the rest are buried at other sites. I’ve dispatched constables to those locations as well, but I didn’t want them to start until we hear from you first, doctor.”

“Thank you, detective. The remains will be fragile, so we best transport the whole lot, casket and all. Tell the constables to be as gentle as they could manage and not to disturb the victims’ remains until I get to the morgue.”

As Lestrade stepped aside to relay the instructions to his subordinates, Molly turned her attention on the deputy-coroner. “Mr. Anderson, how many attendees are there at the morgue currently?”

“Only me and a junior aid. No more.”

“Is there not an acting pathologist?”

Anderson gave a little huff and crossed his arms, “It is the morgue, madam, not the Buckingham Palace.”

Molly responded to his little display with a dismissive turn of her head. Instead, she faced Sherlock, “How soon shall you expect my analysis?”

“As soon as possible. Before the day’s end if you could.”

“Then three persons will not be enough.”

“It’s just bones. What more could we possibly learn?” Anderson complained.

“Nothing with that attitude. If your time may be better spent elsewhere then I invite you to not let us prevent you from doing so. The bones speak, perhaps not to you, but they do to those who listen.” Then to her husband, Molly demanded, “I was promised full cooperation, was I not?”

She wasn’t. Sherlock made no promises of any kind, but if he wanted her help, he will have to do his part.

“Yes of course,” nodded the detective. “And John will assist you should Anderson find himself indisposed.”

John stood up a tad straighter, at attention in a military manner that very much stated _yes madam, at your service._

Rejoining the group, Lestrade gave Anderson a pointed glare, and the man acquiesced. 

“Fine.”

“We’re still recruiting,” explained the inspector. “Dr. Stamford was here before he received an educator position at St. Bart’s last month. The city has yet to assign anyone else. Alas, we are somewhat short staffed in the morgue. Mr. Anderson may not hold a medical degree, but he has many years of experience.”

“That is all very good, detective inspector, but his competence was never in question,” countered Molly without delay. “I am given five bodies and a less-than-twelve-hour deadline; Mr. Anderson could be the best coroner in the country but he nevertheless would still only have one pair of hands. I need more men! Or women! Mary – oh, are you all right?”

A gloved hand coming up to her chest, the blonde shook her head, “Pardon me, gentlemen. I’m afraid I’m having a bit of a turn.” She stumbled a bit in a way that, augmented by her pallor and shortness of breath, suggested she would soon have a spell.

“Mary!” John rushed to his wife’s side.

“I’m fine, John. It’s just the heat.”

“Perhaps you ought to head home. Or indoors at least.”

“Yes, yes, please do, Mrs. Watson,” Lestrade agreed. “I’ll have a constable escort you. Dimmock, if you could.”     

Mary looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn't. John bid her farewell with promises to ‘be home soon’, which she had long learned to not pay mind to. He’ll be home when he comes home; ‘soon’ was a relative if not meaningless word.

Slowly, Mary followed Dimmock away from the graves; the concerned constable was none the wiser to her theatrics, thinking that she really was a flimsy damsel in distress. A turn because of the heat? Ha! As if this paltry English weather could best a woman who grew up in true Indian summers and Arabian storms.

 As she went, Mary could feel the cold heat of Sherlock’s eyes following her for a moment or two before he turned back to the investigation. Mary was a healthy sturdy woman, and that display she’d just put on might’ve fooled her husband, but Sherlock was sure to be at least a bit suspicious.

Still, she wasn’t worried. The consulting detective never had reasons to suspect any wrongdoing on her part, and for the past ten years he had come to see her as a friend, someone worthy to be a part of his inner circle. She knew though, that all of this was about to change.

Mary didn’t care to stay for the post mortem, she already knew how and why those women had died, but now that Sherlock was re-opening the Ripper case, Magnussen - and through him The Preceptor - would need to be informed.   

She had no choice in the matter, she had to obey or Annabel would never be safe. The mission she was given was her priority. She had already pieced together the details of its execution meticulously in her mind; the arrow was on the bow – so to speak. All she needed was her master’s signal for release, and Mary knew, without a doubt, that the decisions that would come to pass depended on Sherlock’s every move. The Preceptor was watching, always watching, through the many eyes he had set upon his empire of which Mary was only one. The Holmes brothers shared a bad habit of touching things that shouldn’t be touched, yanking on threads that shouldn’t be yanked. Mycroft Holmes had wanted to uproot The Ordinem, but he had barely scratched the surface, and now his little brother – who was, despite his many protestations to the contrary, definitely the dimmer of the two – wanted to follow the elder’s footsteps and try his luck at this dangerous game.

She would kill him in a heartbeat if she was ordered. Of that, she had no doubt. That’s not to say Mary wouldn’t have _regrets_ about ending Sherlock’s life, but regret did not equate hesitation. Annabel’s safety was dependent on Mary’s absolute obedience, and she had been with the Ordinem long enough to know that there were no exceptions to the rule. Her daughter’s life versus that of her husband’s best friend – really, there was no competition. Hell, Mary would put a bullet in _John_ if it ever came to that.

Which is why she did not want to stay anymore for the investigation; the part of her that remained very human, that which cared very much about those who she loved and who loved her, couldn’t bear to watch her husband and her friend walk closer to the truth and towards their demise. Mycroft did not succeed eight years ago, but Sherlock was not his brother. He may not be smarter, but he was _definitely_ crazier, more impulsive, more passionate, and more careless about boundaries and limits and…consequences. And John was bound to be right there with him until the end.

The two people that mattered the most to John Watson, his best friend and his wife, one of them was going to be the end of him, if not both.

And then there was Irene, and the changes she brought to the table. For the first time, Irene Adler was closer to discovering The Preceptor’s identity than anyone had ever been, and Mary…

Mary wanted her to win.

No, she didn’t trust the woman. No, god, she would be stupid to even consider it, but the future that Irene’s success promised… It was too tantalizing.  And even as a true sense of fear gripped her tight, Mary felt within it a sliver of hope.

 _Mahabaleshwaraya Namah_ [1], she prayed. _This is how I will know freedom._

 

~~~

 

At Molly’s insistence, Lestrade managed to put together a motley crew of constables nimble enough with their fingers to help out with the post-mortem, well, _post_ post-mortem.

The morgue was dingy, dam, dark and unfitting for a lady, but Molly was not a lady. With an apron over her dress, her sleeves rolled up and secured above her elbow, and her hair neatly arranged away from her eyes, she was a pathologist in her natural element. 

“Dr. Hooper here will be taking over the post-mortem for the Ripper Case. You will be on your best behaviour, lads. Especially you Anderson.” Lestrade instructed the crew, which included Dimmock and two other constables. In the spirit of cooperation, John had also joined the fray, and Sherlock too, of course.

“At your command, madam.” John grinned, shedding his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. Together, the six of them got down to work. Water was heated to a lukewarm temperature, and the bones of the five Ripper victims were laid out on separate tables in anatomical order and gently cleansed with a damp cloth. After 8 years of decomposition, not much was left of the tissue, but the bones were well preserved and Molly honed in on them like a blood hound. 

Several hours went by swiftly, and by mid afternoon, the team was beginning to tire. Lestrade stepped out mid way to follow up on the Yard’s progress on contacting the victims’ next of kin, but it was proving to be a difficult task.

“That was bloody waste of my time,” sighed Lestrade as he removed his hat and stepped up beside John, who was peering over Chapman’s body with a magnifying glass. Several tables over, Molly was with Constable Dimmock examining Mary Kelly, while Sherlock had shooed Anderson to the side in order to monopolize Nicol’s remains.

“No luck?” asked John absentmindedly as he cleaned the bones with a soft-bristled brush. His jacket and waistcoat had come off and was thrown over a chair by the corner along with what appeared to be the constables' uniform top and Molly’s hat and outer day suit. The day was already hot, and the morgue, while cooler than outside, did not offer much in terms of fresh air or breeze. Even Sherlock seemed lesser than his usual pristine, preened self.

Lestrade rubbed his eyes, and responded quietly as to not disturb the others, “No. Nichols’s estranged husband and five children seemed to have disappeared from the surface of the planet. The neighbours said they’ve been gone for years. Same with Eddowes. I hear Chapman has a daughter in a circus somewhere in France, but that’s nearly impossible to track on a short term notice. Stride was a registered prostitute of Swedish origin – no family. And there’s next to none corroborating documents of Kelly’s history. Dead ends on all accounts.”

“Inspector,” spoke up Molly, who had obviously been listening in to Lestrade’s conversation despite his best attempt to keep his voice low.  Wiping her hands on her apron hastily, she rounded the table towards where Eddowes’s bones were laid. “How many children did you say Catherine Eddowes had?”

Those occupied by work paused the task at hand, looking up from the bones in front of them towards the pathologist who had gestured for Sherlock and the policemen to gather around Eddowes’s pelvis.

“Five.”

“Step-children?”

“No, I don’t believe.”

“Adopted?”

“Er, no… If they are, her husband never mentioned a word.”

“Why, what have you found?” Sherlock cut in. “Is it the pubic symphysis?”

“Yes. Look here, inspector. Usually, the pubic symphysis widens during pregnancy, but other factors could affect it’s widening as well, so in the medical community there is no consensus on any osteological indicator that would prove parous. However, Eddowe’s pubic symphysis is extremely narrow, more so than the average woman, as is with her entire pelvic structure. You said she had multiple children with her estranged husband, but to me this just doesn’t look like the hips of a woman who has ever born children, never mind five.”  

“I agree,” said John.  

“There’s also this. Come,” Molly led the group to Stride’s table, and carefully picked up Stride’s skull by the base.

“What do you observe of the gonia, gentlemen?” Molly pointed to the area between where the ear would have been and where the jawbone turned upwards. There was silence all around. Not even Sherlock had anything to add – a rarity in the morgue.

“The turn at the end of the jaw is quite sharp, and,” Molly placed the skull back on the table surface. “Notice how the bottom of the jawbone meets the tabletop completely. Both of this mandibular traits suggest that Stride was at least partially of Asian descent. Forensic examination is not an exact science at the current level of knowledge, but this is nevertheless an anomaly to be considered, especially since you said she was from Sweden.”

“Asian, so, oriental?” asked Lestrade, clearly impressed. [Note: 'oriental' is an offensive term in modern day language, but was part of the common vocabulary in late 19th century]

“No. Judging by the height of her brow bone, it is more possible that she is Indian or from Arabia.” Molly picked up the old photograph of Stride clipped to her file. “She was clearly not oriental, and she was quite pale. Mixed ancestry, I suppose?”

“All right, but forgive me doctor, but how does this explain their murders.” The inspector frowned, more confused than ever.

“It doesn’t. I am simply stating what I discover. Solving the mystery is your job.” Molly fold her hands over the edge of the table. “There is one more finding which I think you might find very interesting.”

“The multiple fractures?” Sherlock observed.

"Yes."

“Well, it’s not unlikely that these women were beaten before they died.” Lestrade postulated

“No.” Sherlock rebutted, but gave no further explanation. The flatness in his tone clearly meant _you are, as ever, slow. Do keep up, Graham._

Molly lowered her face to hide an amused grin, “Mr. Holmes is right. None of the fractures are the remnants of defensive wounds obtained during her murder. Stride had a history of fractures, some more severe than others, none of which would have resulted in death or permanent disability. There are evidences of bone remodelling of different stages – all quite old. Years before time of death. Judging from this evidence, it is possible that she was abused over a significant period of time. Was she?”

“There was no information on that,” admitted Lestrade lamely. “There’s not much information on any of these -”

But the inspector was rudely interrupted before he could finish. Apparently Sherlock had heard quite enough.   

“Wife, could you confirm that those four other bodies also bear similar bone damages.”

Molly glanced up from the set of remain before her, lips twisting a little awkwardly at being called ‘wife’ so bluntly in public, but Sherlock had a look on his face that she recognized all too well. It was the tension before the release, the calm before the storm, the wait for the last straw – the deduction was narrowing, focusing, and Sherlock was almost at a conclusion.

“Yes, they do. Kelly, being only in her 20s, did not have as many, but there were signs of minor fracturing.”

“So, what does that mean? All these women had unhappy home lives? That’s hardly news in Whitechapel, and they were prostitutes before they died; abuse is not out of the question.” Anderson crossed his arms.

“Anderson, as always, you see but you don’t observe,” Sherlock admonished without true malice. His attention was still fixed on his wife, whom he implored to examine Nicols once more with a wordless gesture.

 “Did I miss something?” Molly frowned, slightly peeved. Perhaps she was a bit rusty after so many years of idle domesticity. “I suppose it’s possible –”

A nick on the lower side of the fifth right rib, approximately two centimeters lateral to the midclavicular line, caught her attention. It was a small, clean mark, no signs of healing, clearly inflicted during the victim’s final hours. Being so incredibly small, she had missed it the first time. Sherlock clearly didn’t, and now she could see why he wanted her to look at it again. The nick was likely to have been caused by a blade, and given its angle and location, it was highly probable to have pierced the hepatic artery. Not enough to kill on the spot, but definitely enough to incapacitate.

She’s seen injuries like these before… this was no random stabbing, no lucky aim of an amateur.

Gingerly, Molly thumbed the damaged bone.

 _“Her abdomen had been mutilated with one deep jagged wound plus several more across the abdomen, and three or four similar cuts on her right side by the same knife, estimated to be at least six to eight inches long, used violently and downwards.”_  [2] Molly recited the initial post-mortem report to herself.

“All those cuts, to hide one that mattered. The one that would’ve incapacitated her, rendering her unable to defend herself. Then, all that was needed was-” she hovered her fingers over Nicols’s cervical spine, imagining where the jugular would’ve been when it was severed.

“That’s enough,” ordered Sherlock suddenly. “Thank you, Dr. Hooper.”

Molly looked up at her husband and saw her thoughts reflecting back. But where she had questions, Sherlock had suspicions. She straightened, fists tightening, “Actually if you don’t mind, I’d like to study these some more.”

Sherlock considered it for half a second. “Fine, but,” he said to her in lowered tone, privately, “keep what you learn to yourself.” Then louder, to John, he hollered, “Come Watson, let’s go. My brother has some explaining to do.”

 “Wait hold on – what?” Lestrade threw his hands up. “Hold on a minute!”

At the door, Sherlock spun on his heel and pointed at the morgue of bodies and declared, “Missing families. Unreliable victim history. History of fractures. No wonder the investigation never went anywhere, detective inspector. You were looking for one killer when really, you already had five laid out before you. These women – they were not prostitutes – they were fighters, killers. Assassins!”

 

~~~

 

_True to her own premonition, she did not last six months._

_Six months…_

_April, May, June, July, August, September._

“Annabel, I’m so boooorrrred.” James whined loudly, wiggling in his library chair and earning him several disapproving glares from the adults all around.

This obnoxious display jolted his friend from her reverie. Annabel blinked, and realized she’s been staring at the same page for the last ten minutes. She wondered if James noticed, but he didn’t seem to be paying much attention. Beside him, their chaperone and nanny Miss Donovan flashed the other library attendees apologetic smiles.

“Shush Mr. James,” Sally admonished and collected _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ from the floor where he had tossed it. “You are being very rude; remember this is the London Library.”

“Sally is right, Mish. You were the one who wanted to come here.” Annabel peered at her friend over the top of her own book – _Oliver Twist_ – a choice her father was sure to disapprove of.  “And you like Mark Twain.”

“Not today. I’m bored of it. I lack stimulation,” demanded James with a pout, mirroring his father’s habits and attitudes. “Hmm, this is a conundrum. I know my own tastes, and hence my choices” – he picked up the two other books beside his elbow ( _Treasure Island_ and an abridged French copy of _Le Conte de Monte Cristo_ ) and waved it about in demonstration – “but I’m so _tired_ of the things I like.”

Sally rolled her eyes at the boy’s precociousness. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Annabel, however, was more sympathetic. “Fine, would you like to trade?” She gestured towards her pile of books diplomatically.

James wrinkled his nose at Jane Austen’s _Persuasion_ and said, “no thanks, but you could help me in a different way. Let’s play a game –”

“- again, Mr. James, this is the _library._ ” Sally’s reiteration fell on deaf ears. Obviously.

“How about we pick out something interesting to read for the other person. Something that may not strike the other as their first choice, but would still enjoy nevertheless.” James leaned forwards, big blue eyes wide behind fluttering eye lashes, bottom lip jutted out – completely melodramatic, undeniably adorable, and one hundred percent effective.

Annabel rolled her eyes, briefly considering his suggestion and the interruption it would cause on her otherwise relaxing quiet reading time. Being nineteen months older, she was unfazed by his usual tantrum but vastly susceptible to his softer ploys. As always, she gave in to his begging, and did not detect the shade of danger behind those electric blues.

“Well, all right.” Annabel conceded, smiling despite her exasperation. Poking his nose, she made a face at her friend and set down her book, placing a lock of braided old leather between the pages.

James watched Bel scoot off her seat and disappear down the many isles, and soon as she was out of sight, the smile evaporated from his face.

He had trusted Annabel, trusted her with his ‘quest’ – the mystery of the woman in the photo. She had promised him her support, promised him to discover on his behalf the secrets of John’s journal. When she had returned the next day, her face had screamed a million devastating truths, but what came out of her mouth was only deceit.

_I couldn’t find anything, Mish. Papa didn’t write about her. Maybe your father didn’t work the case with him?_

She had been so convincing, all big grey eyes and tender sincerity even when she'd been lying through her teeth. Annabel was good liar; she could do it on the spot, to anyone, her mum, her dad, her uncle Sherlock, and they would never doubt her. Why would they? She was the good girl, the obedient child. She was Annabel.

But he was James. For all the things that would come to pass between them, in the upcoming months and the far away years, James may never have the upper hand, and his only protection in their disputes would be his uncanny ability to know Annabel’s nature. The only one, in my opinion, who could in this world.

For most their lives, Annabel would be the mindful second opinion whispering into James’s ears, telling him things like: _no Mish, don’t do that. Stop it, or I’m telling!_ Some day as Nero Wolfe, he would return the favour: _kill one more man in New York, Miss Pax, and I will lead the NYPD to your doorstep._

Annabel was not an unusual girl. A formidable woman to be sure, but that’s not until years later. As a girl, Annabel was the epitome of a good child. Knowing what and who she became, I cannot say whether it was all an act, but before the age of 25, there were no credible evidence indicating any criminal wrongdoing on her part. And as her best friend, James could not be blamed to have led her astray. His maternal influence aside, the man that the naughty child grew up to be was steadfast, true and kept strictly to the straight and narrow.

You may ask, at what point did their role reverse? God only knows, but it is interesting to note that Annabel never did tattle on James’s misadventures, and the NYPD (or any-PD, for that matter) never could catch a whiff of Aurora Pax.

Perhaps they both harboured a soft spot in their heart for the other, a weakness which survived the harshness of adulthood, the disparity of their ideology, the distance between their persons, till the end of their days.

Nero Wolfe is a famously shrewd and unforgiving man, but as a boy, James was easily trusting. In his early years, he was raised in a cocoon of love, comfort and protection, carefully crafted by his family and extended kins, who conceivably were all driven by the urge to compensate him for the disturbance that being Sherlock Holmes’s son must inevitably cause. Especially his stepmother, who was his primary carer, she’d emphasized all the traits and values that his father would’ve otherwise “forgotten” to teach him.

 _Rely on those who love you, James._ Molly had taught him. _We would never hurt you._

And he did. He relied on Annabel, his best friend, and he trusted her to not betray his confidence. But none of that could change what he saw as plain as day ever since the topic of "The Woman" came between them: Annabel's hesitance, her distraction, every little change that plagued her. He couldn’t understand the reason behind any of it, except this: “The Woman” was no longer a mystery to be solved _with him_ , but a secret that needed to be kept _from him._ Not just Annabel; all the adults - Mrs. Hudson, Mrs. Watson, Uncle John, Detective Inspector Lestrade…and his father. 

Sally seemed to be the only one in the dark with him, but even _she_ seemed to be holding back about what she knew. She had refused to tell him what had happened at the party that his father had gone to. She had seen something that night, maybe... she'd seen Sherlock and Miss Wolfe together, an encounter for whatever reason spurred everyone’s condemnation.

No matter what the secret was behind this woman, this Katherine Wolfe, James was determined to find out – even if he had to dig through public record, trudge through history, and into his father’s past to unearth her.

He never liked being kept in the dark. 

 _April, 1888._ That was the date on the paper where the photo had been attached, but the W folder itself told differently.

After his father had left abruptly last night to see a client, and after all the guests had gone home, James had sneaked into Sherlock’s study again to inspect the file. The second inspection revealed a detail he and Annabel had missed the first time, that at the edge of the W dossier was a second date, written in pencil and faded – October, 1888.

James didn’t know why the folder’s date did not match the paper on the inside, but that was not important. The importance was that now he had a window within which to narrow his search. Six months, late spring through early fall of 1888 - his instincts told him that was where the answers lied. Some would claim that these “gut feelings” were unreliable at best, but for once James was willing to take a leap of faith and to convince himself that instincts were simply processes within the subconscious that the conscious mind have yet fully consolidated.

“Mr. James?” Sally beckoned quietly, a hand coming to rest against his shoulder blade. “Mr. James, are you all right?”

“Yes, Miss Donovan.” James answered the maid, voice flat and unaffected, cool as Thames’s water on any autumn morning.

The speed and completely change in his demeanor from his earlier childish tantrum left Sally momentarily stunned. She jerked backwards, reeling from the sharp mental whiplash. The sullen look in James’s eyes was frightening, and Sally felt a chill ghosting down her spill that she did not like at all.

 “James –” she started, but the child silenced her with a small hand on her arm, little fingers coiling around her wrist and fixing her against the table top with surprising strength.

“Donovan, you are not here as my governess, so don’t presume you can scold me. Come with and try to play along.”

James hoped off his seat, clearly no longer interested in debating with her, and made off without a backwards glance. Scowling, Sally had no choice but to chase after him.

The head librarian was a forty-something year old, thin-faced, thin-lipped, bespectacled man who had a permanent frown and could not speak in any way but the queen’s English, all posh, slow, full of superlatives and iambic pentameters. James had neither time nor patience for him. The librarian disliked the presence of children in his “holy, quiet” place, and the same sentiment was copied by his flock of underlings.

Even without attempting, James knew that he’d have no luck with any of the regular librarians for what he wanted to accomplish, but luckily for him, there was a new employee today. It was a young woman, marriageable-age, ginger with light freckles and an amicable disposition towards children. She had greeted them kindly when they came, and James had seen her smiling at him and Annabel on multiple occasions. She thought him adorable, which worked exactly to his advantage.

He walked up to her and smiled sweetly, toeing at the carpet pretending to be shy and mumbled, “Excuse me, Miss.”

“Oh, hello young man, what can I do for you?” The maiden leaned over her small station, and grinned blithely.

“I was wondering…you see,” he fumbled with his sleeve, continuing to carry out with his charade. “I’m wondering if it would be possible to have a look at the newspaper archives.”

The library frowned slightly, a tad confused by his request. “And why is it that you ask?”

Her curiosity was within his calculation. Undeterred, James inched closer, gazed up at the young woman beseechingly with his big blue eyes, and spoke as though he were making a confession. “My father is a very busy man. He’s never home, always away on business. It’ll be the first time I see in him in years, and I want to surprise him with a gift. I haven’t got any allowance, so I thought….er, well, I thought if I made him a book – a scrap book – of, of all the exciting things that happened while he was away, then…. then…. it’d be like he was never really gone.” He let his head drop, painting a portrait of dejection when in fact he needed to hide a grin that was about to slip.

The smile on the woman’s lips drooped, her brows furrowed and her mouth formed a quiet, sighing ‘oh’. Head still bent, James released an internal cheer of victory knowing that he had her.

“There now,” she cooed, dapping her handkerchief on his cheeks which were quickly becoming wet with tears. She glanced up at Sally, who stood behind James with what she hoped was an apologetic expression.

“You are….?” The librarian asked.

“The governess,” Sally lied, placing her hands on both of James’s shoulders. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, this little man has been in a mood for days.”

The library frowned slightly. Judging from the boy’s attires and his perfect grammar, his family was clearly not in want of money…. but a mulatto governess? Who’s ever heard of such a thing!

Seeing that the woman was starting to be suspicious, James whimpered a bit louder, and maximized the effect of his tearful blue eyes. “Please?”

And as expected, the young librarian succumbed. “Of course. Don’t you worry, you sweet thing, we’ll find you those newspapers.” She jingled her keys in front of James and lightly pinched his cheeks. “Come with me, love.”

The librarian turned her back to lead the way, and soon as she did, a haughty smirk lit up a tear stained face. There really was no stranger sight.

James knew that the newspapers were kept in an archive which can only be accessed through requests. The old stuffy librarians that worked here before were never going to allow a little boy into there. If this lady had not been there, he would have to find some more inventive ways to get in. Currently, his back up plan was to blackmail the heavy-set gentlemen sitting two tables down from him to ask for the archive keys on his behalf. James was about 75% sure that man was stealing new books from the libraries to sell for a profit, but 75% wasn’t exactly favourable odds, so James was glad he didn’t have to go through the trouble.

“James,” Sally hissed under her breath, flashing a furtive glance towards the librarian leading in front of them. “What are you doing?!”

“I’m solving the case. Father knew Katherine Wolfe since 1888. I suspect that was when they were first acquainted. Something happened then…. The old newspapers may give us some clues.”

“What about Annabel? Mr. Watson will have my hide if we lose her!”

Sally was a kind woman, and she meant well, but in James’s opinion she clearly wasn’t very bright if she thought Annabel could get _lost_ at a public library. He didn’t consider the possibility that being nine, Annabel was essentially defenseless against any attacker taller than a tree stub (or a gnome), which was why he rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Like you said, it’s the _library._ She’ll be fine.”

Sally gnawed on her lips, still worried about letting a nine-year-old girl off on her own. True it was the library, but a pretty little girl in a man’s world alone could always use more caution. 

James pulled on her sleeve, “We won’t be gone long. Annabel won’t even notice we’re gone. Besides, she won’t be interested in what we have to find.”

“And why is that?”

“Is it not obvious?” James tilted his head at Sally, his expression a perfect reflection of his father’s patented signature – judgemental, superior, and impatient. Eyes narrowing and the ominous frown returning, the boy flicked his gaze back towards the staircase, where Annabel could be see climbing upwards.

“Annabel has been lying. She already knows.”

_~~~_

 

No one in this world is born great; of that, I am absolutely certain. Even princes who were born to be kings could become colossal failures, despite the over abundance of silver spoons. One could be born poor or rich, be born healthy or ill, be born in a little shack by the cotton fields or in the Buckingham Palace, but none of that determines the greatness that one would achieve in life. The point is, that every great man and woman, irrespective of their station and origin, started relatively in the same place – their mother’s womb - and the only two things that could affect their path to greatness were the choices they make and the companies they keep.

Both of those factors were fundamentally altered for Annabel Watson the day she met Irene Adler.

It was in the botany section on the second floor of the London Library that this encounter occurred. Annabel told me once that she had not so much been directed onto Irene’s path as fallen into her arms. _Had she saved me from certain death? Who knows; we don’t keep scores, Mummy and I._

When I asked her why she called Miss Adler that, Annabel responded with a cavalier shrug of her shoulders and a toss of her golden blonde hair. _Well what else would I call her? Besides, my Ma wouldn’t have minded._

In the library that day, Annabel had been standing at the far top of a ladder, in a deserted section on angiosperms. James had just told her he wanted to read something interesting, and she was diligently searching for a book that might stand up to his somewhat snobbish standards.

The entire incident transpired rather quickly. One second, she was holding a book, and the next she was plummeting from the summit of an 8 feet ladder. Death was unlikely, but she would’ve had a concussion and a broken bone or two if the arms that caught her hadn’t been there in time.

Annabel hardly knew what’d happened before she’d been set back on her feet, the book still clutched to her chest with both arms – held on to for dear life. Did she scream? She must’ve. Her throat felt dry and hoarse. Yet no one was rushing to see her, so maybe she didn’t. At any rate, she couldn’t recall.

“That was quite a scare, wasn’t it?” A warm gloved hand was smoothing back her hair, and a silky sultry voice was cooing comforting words. “But you’re all right, darling. Nothing to worry about.”

Now, Annabel was _very_ nearsighted. If the woman had been standing at her full height, Annabel would not have been able to see her clearly, but kneeling brought the woman much closer, and those electric blue eyes Annabel knew so well but on a different face struck her like lightning down her spine.

There were more creases around her eyes, and her smile was sharper, harder that the one in the photo, but this was The Woman, the one Uncle Sherlock kept a secret, the woman her Pa wrote about in his journal. James’s mother. 

“Oh,” said the woman, though she didn’t seem as surprised as she tried to sound. “So you recognize me.”

Blood rush to Annabel's cheeks for so many different reasons; she nodded.

The woman was still smiling, but it wasn’t a smile. “I’m glad. Not many do. Even less want to. Miss Watson, am I right?”

“Hello Miss Adler.”

“Are you frightened?” Asked Irene as she stood. She stopped by a book, picked it up off the shelf, and opened it to a seemingly random page. When she was done, she put it back, and carried down the isle.

Annabel followed her without push or prompt. “Should I be frightened?” 

“Based on what your parents must’ve told you, a smart girl would.” Another smile was directed down at her. Annabel wondered how and where this woman had learned to smile and not smile simultaneously. 

“No one _told_ me anything,” responded the girl defensively. She didn’t know why she felt the need to justify herself, that she wasn’t some silly child being fed fairy-tales by her folks, that she was brilliant by her own merits, just as James was.

“Then how did you know who I was?”

“You look like James. Has no one ever told you?”

Irene did not respond. Instead, she paused at another spot, picked up another book and proceeded to open it to another random page down the middle. Annabel frowned, blinking and squinting, desperate to see what the older woman was doing. On an average day, she dealt with being myopic just fine, but sometimes, like now, she really hated her deficits. Irene, as if she knew Annabel’s condition, did not bother to shield her actions at all. When she was done with whatever she was doing, she placed it back on the shelf, and turned to look at Annabel once more.

“Try again.”

The girl grimaced, “What?”

“Try again. That was a terrible lie.”

“It’s not a lie,” Annabel grumbled in protestation, but she relented nevertheless. “I read Pa’s journal.”

“Journals don’t have pictures, and I doubt Dr. Watson have much in terms of artistic talents. He would not have put up with his illustrator for so long if he could just draw the scenes in his book by himself.” Irene began walking again, and again, the girl trailed after her.

“You seem to know an awful lot about my Pa,” questioned Annabel suspiciously.  

“I know an awful lot about everyone. And frankly child, there’s really not much to know about your ‘Pa’.” Irene glanced back over her shoulder and fixed the girl with a sardonic little grin, to which Annabel scowled and crossed her arm. She did not take well to stranger insulting her family. Sure, her Pa was a bit of a stick in the mud, and was not as attentive to her Ma as he should be when he’s caught up in Uncle Sherlock’s world, but he was her Pa and the greatest Pa. 

 “If you’re so omniscient, then you should know that I know your face from the photo Uncle Sherlock keeps in his study!”

Now _that_ did strike a cord with the otherwise perfectly aloof woman. Irene cut her step mid stride, whipping around to the child glaring mutinously up at her. Annabel had her father’s sarcasm and her mother’s grit, that much Irene was willing to admit. Jutting her chin out, Annabel refused to break gaze, even though her little knuckles had turned white from clutching at her book so fiercely. Whether her tension sprung from fear or anger, Irene could not tell. Irene stood still and sighed through her nose, a bit annoyed at herself for letting a nine-year-old girl take a stab at her soft underbelly, but mostly she was just impressed.

“He does, does he?” She whispered, more to herself than anyone else, and it was first time that Annabel had ever seen anyone so… sad without a single hint of whimper or tears, so sad whilst smiling. And it was as though a voice spoke to her from deep within for the very first time – _you see that, Bel? That, is what a pressure point looks like. Everyone has one, even the greatest of men and the most untouchable of women._   

“It was in a drawer, locked,” explained Annabel. “James found it one day when he was being naughty. He doesn’t know what I know though, but if you want to meet him, he’s downstairs.” Slowly, her shoulder relaxed and she reached out with her hand, towards the warm crevice between Irene’s fingers. 

Irene squeezed Annabel’s small hand gently, and with the other, tucked a strand of her golden hair behind her ears. “No, Annabel. Not today.”

“But…why?” Protested the child. “Don’t you miss him? Don’t you-” _Love him?_

“Because his father and I agreed that I would see James later.”

If Annabel had known The Woman better, she would’ve found this to be wholly out of character. Since when had Irene Adler been a follower of rules and agreement? Since when had she stopped doing whatever she liked whenever she like? But Annabel didn’t understand Irene, not yet. Someday day she would be as close to The Woman as her own hand, but currently, she was just a child who didn’t know what it meant that a woman would deny herself what she’d dreamed of, prayed for, the singular flame that kept her warm on the coldest of nights. To want it, but to be afraid of wanting it, and even more to be afraid what it’d be like when she finally had it –

Annabel didn’t know, and perhaps would never truly know the kind of pain that Irene lived with, but in time, she will come to understand and appreciate the extent of human resilience under prolonged suffering. She may not necessarily use her wisdom in a way that would benefit the progress of society, but that’s another story for another day. Years down the line, she will grow to be less concerned with James’s happiness, but the nine-year-old her still very much believed in family and togetherness.

“James is looking for you. He wants to – he could tell that you’re different, that you’re…special to his father!” Exclaimed Annabel, as loud as she was allowed in a library. Never let anyone say Annabel wasn’t every bit as stubborn as John had ever been. She tugged on Irene’s arm when the woman tried to turn away, and pleaded with a tremor of desperation in her voice, “Miss Adler, he’s your son!”

“No, darling,” said Irene, withdrawing her hand. “He _was_ my son.” 

To that, Annabel could not find the words to argue. She got a feeling that Miss Adler had just confessed an awful kind of truth to her, one which she might deny to other people or even to herself. She watched Irene move to another book, open it, shuffle the pages about, and then set it back onto the shelf. She could not see Irene’s face, but her posture was closed. Whatever part of The Woman Annabel had touched with her probing questions and prodding words, it was shut off and walled up, and this conversation was indeed over.

Irene spared her one cool glance over her shoulder, no trace of any distress or morose detectable on her perfectly schooled face, no traces of anything at all. Her face was like the blank page at the very beginning of a book, belying the ocean of words floating underneath, ready for hungry eyes and open minds, to be read and understood and loved for all her sins and crimes and imperfection. And then, the face turned, leaving the viewer only a shadow of her figure, the tassels of her jet black hair, and the stiffness of her corseted torso – the embellished book-cover, which told nothing of the story within.

“Goodbye, Miss Watson.”

 _No. Not goodbye_ , thought Annabel.

“Until next time, Miss. Adler.”

Irene disappeared within seconds amongst the aisles, so swiftly and soundlessly that Annabel had to wonder if in fact the woman been there at all and not simply a figment of her concussed mind. Maybe she really had fallen from the ladder and this was all just a dream from her injury. Yet the air surrounding her smelled faintly of roses, bergamot, and vanilla, and Miss Adler’s eyes had been so strikingly blue that it could not possibly have been a dream.

Annabel headed for the inner balconies, and over the railings she saw James returning to the table with Sally in toll. He must’ve felt her gaze, for he looked up and founding her staring at him.

She waved, and then raised the book on orchids she'd chosen so that he may see. Shockingly, he just…stared at her for long moment without doing anything at all, as though he were deciding whether or not she deserved anything more than his judgement.

 _Oh,_ realized Annabel, _he’s mad. He knows that I’ve been lying.  But you don’t know anything. Even if I told you, how could you possibly grasp the severity of your mother’s broken heart?_

She must’ve appeared quite stricken by her own thoughts, because James blinked, his solemn glare softened and dithered. She was still his friend, and he still cared. His lips twitched, tugging upwards into a slow, unsure smile. _Come downstairs, Bel. What’s the matter?_ It seemed to say.

James had his mother’s eyes, and his mother’s smile, but Irene was right, he was _Sherlock Holmes’_ s son - first, second and last. Whatever place Irene might’ve had in his life, it was a relic of the past. She could never reclaim what was hers. Time, unlike wealth or reputation, once lost could never be recovered, and memories once tarnished, could never be golden again.

_He **was** my son. Was. _

James was always going to become the great Nero Wolfe of NYC irrespective from where he came. Irene’s delayed introduction to in his life had determined that her position as his maternal parent was going to be a point of contention, and the circumstances surrounding her return had further cemented a tumultuous relationship with her only child. Indeed, over the course of his adolescence, James would develop the good sense of loving his mother distantly, if at all. And unlike his father who could never resist his inner Icarus, James was immovable in his practice of keeping his mother at arm’s length, as one would any dangerous thing.   
  
Yet on the topic of dangerous things, it must be said the most formidable example was the one that James did not have the foresight to recognize as a child, nor had the ability to handle as an adult. How could he have predicted that the smiling girl heading down the stairs towards him would one day dominate the Americas as one of its most notorious criminal leaders the history of postmodern new world.  A dear friend. An enemy. How could he have predicted that when Annabel Watson looked up at his mother, the danger she saw did not make her weary as it did him, but gave her proof of the great heights that intelligence and a charming smile could take a girl ambitious enough to climb. Since their fleeting encounter at the London Library, Annabel had held on to the hem of Irene’s skirt with one hand and had no intention of letting go. With the other hand, she kept a firm grip on James, a hold from which he could not wretch free no matter what continent he fled to or which name he assumed. Because whilst one could not, in good faith, describe Annabel as her father’s daughter, James was every bit his father’s son.

 

~~~

 

“So what you’re saying,” John clarified. “Is that what we’re up against is possibly the most dangerous, disciplined, ruthless organized crime group in the world.”

The tea had gone cold in his cup, and for once, John didn’t care for tea. He wanted something much stronger.

The good new was there is no such thing as Jack the Ripper, the bad news was, the actual person, _persons,_ responsible was unimaginably worse.

The late Lord Holmes. The Ordinem. The Four. Emma Uslowska. Edward Smallwood. To think just hours ago, they were just looking for your run-of-the-mills psychopath. Compared to what effectively was the second coming of Moriarty but (according to Mycroft) with an larger empire rooted in a longer history, your neighbourhood prostitute-gutting murderer was a walk in a park with a basket of puppies.

The sun was beginning to set, and as it was July, this meant that it was nearly approaching 8 o’clock and that they’d all missed supper. Mycroft and Sherlock sat opposite of each other across from the fireplace in Mycroft’s private wing at the Diogenes Club, stewing in their individual displeasures with the other. John was eager for a stiff drink and a dreamless sleep, so he could escape from the current misfortune for a blissful few hours. Only Anthea sat unaffected beside Mycroft, poised and aloof, waiting…. waiting. For the other shoe to drop.

John rubbed his temple, considering for the last time if he should just give up and go home to his family. His brain was overloaded with information, his tea was cold, and he was miserable. Yet, it didn’t seem like the right thing to, leaving the fray while everyone was still very much deep in the case. Well, Mycroft and Sherlock were in the case, he himself was barely staying afloat and god knows where Anthea’s mind had gone. She barely said three words all afternoon, and one simply could not read that doll-like poker face – it was infuriating!

“So Smallwood is innocent.” Sherlock stated, a bit obviously for his usual wit. But this was a rather complex scenario involving his father’s life’s work and his brother’s blunders, so maybe even the great detective needed a moment to consolidate the information into an understandable framework. All things considered he’s taking the knowledge of the Ordinem all rather well, considering Siger’s involvement in its instigation. His fingers were steepled beneath his chin, his long gangly legs were crossed and his mind was focused. “A patsy.”

“Yes.”

“And you were wrong,” Sherlock reiterated, smudge of snide colouring his tone. “Monumentally so.”

Mycroft sneered. “Stooping to the obvious, brother dear? Have you nothing new to add? The Preceptor is very much alive, that is undeniable.” He scowled, tapping his hand along the armrest in irritation.

“Undeniable? How? Because of the dead broker?” John cut in, determined (and struggling) to keep up.   

“No,” Sherlock answered instead. “There’s no evidence in post mortem that suggests that the broker was killed using similar methods as the Ripper victims – oh pardon me, the _Ordinem agents_ – other than the fact he was brutally butchered, but that could be done by anyone. My brother’s concern arises from the little birds whispering in his ears. The Zanzibar sultan. The sunken ship of British armaments. The failed James’s raid. A slew of failures that the Crown can’t ignore. These are no coincidences – as Miss Adler was kind enough to point out for us.”

“Among other things,” added the elder Holmes with a pained grimace, as if mere mentions of The Woman had upset him.

“So what does this have to do with the broker? Mr. Nader - _who_ killed him and _why_?” John set down his tea cup, deciding that since this did not look like it was going to be over soon, he might as well participate.  

Mycroft twirled the tea in his cup, “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. The only thing we are sure of at this point is that we are not sure of anything.”

Sherlock mirrored his action. “And how sure were you that Edward was the one? Were there any other suspects, even the slightest chance, ever?”  

“There never seemed like there was another answer. It was…obvious.” Mycroft’s eyes lowered minutely, a small motion which was barely detectable, but for him it was as clear a statement as waving a white flag. An admittance of oversight was almost unthinkable for a man like Mycroft, for he was undoubtedly one of, if not the most, intelligent man in all of Britain and very possibly Europe. When stupid men make mistakes, very few suffer, because very few depend on the decisions made by stupid men. Contrarily, great men’s mistakes may be few and far in between, but they always have grave consequences.

Pitching forward in his seat, Sherlock slowly tilted his head, “Yes, but you were wrong. Whoever led you on knows you, knows how you think, how you _deduce_. Someone you’ve worked with, who mentored you perhaps…someone within this great cesspool of a government.”

“Yes, that is a possibility, except if you wish to interrogate my mentors, you’d have to host a séance.”

“And Richard Nader, why was he targeted? Who does he work for?”

Anthea’s gaze shifted to him, abruptly, like a machine suddenly springing into motion. “What makes you think we’d know?”

“Don’t try to outwit me, Austen. I saw your lackeys hang around the Yard like hounds waiting for a bone to drop.”

Anthea remained unfazed, “It wasn’t us that killed him, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Mr. Nader’s clienteles consisted of quite a few individuals that would be of interest to us.” Her explanation was vague, but Sherlock understood. Richard Nader handled the assets of powerful individuals in parliament, lords and minsters no doubt, and perhaps some of Mycroft’s own political rivals. It would not be surprising if Mycroft had him monitored.

Anthea, as though sensing Sherlock’s thoughts, said, “We don’t monitor him, because before his death his activities were not suspicious, but we are familiar with him and his habits. If his murder implicates his clients, we need to be aware.”

Sherlock gritted his teeth, fingers tapping rapidly against his thigh. “If it’s not you, then who? Two parties are involved in his death – or have you gone slow in your middle age, brother mine? Nader was tortured. Fingers broken, nails removed – pre-mortem. Cause of death single bullet to the head. Disemboweled post mortem. His organs were removed and scattered, but his face was left unmarred for identification. The modus operanti doesn’t match the original deaths in 1888, nor are the post-mortem mutilations congruent with the intentions of the pre-mortem injuries. Torture is used as a mode of extraction or for its own sake, though the former is more likely in this case. Single bullet implies execution, not the kind of killing which usually follows with meaningless desecration of a corpse.”

“Therefore?” Mycroft prompted.

“Someone torture Richard Nader and killed him. Then someone _else_ disemboweled him and left him for the Met to find. They want us to investigate Nader, Nader is the key…”

This whole case reeked of pre-manipulation; someone out there was laying now clues for him to follow, directing the path of his investigation, just as Mycroft had been unknowingly maneuvered towards the wrong conclusion eight years ago. They, who ever they are, want him to dig into Nader’s death, but to solve this case, he has to first solve the last one – the one Mycroft had botched. This entire business with the Ordinem was skewed from the start. Sherlock didn’t know which piece of the evidence he could trust, or if it was yet again another distraction set out to confuse him. This case is nebulous like none he’d ever encountered, too much information and threads entangled together in orders that appeared random but also not.

“Hold on, wait. Wait.” John threw up his hand. “If I understood correctly, you’re saying there’s _the Ordinem_ who is killing people, and there’s _another_ third party causing trouble, so that we’d… investigate the Ordinem?”

“Perhaps we are simply pieces in somebody else’s war,” Sherlock muttered to himself.

John crossed his arm, “Alright, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but since we’re ignoring the elephant in the room, I’m just going to come out with it:  what if it’s Irene Adler? What if this is all some kind of scheme on her part?”

Sherlock, predictably, took offense. “To achieve what end? If she wanted us to investigate the Ordinem, she already accomplished that the other night when she convinced Mycroft that The Preceptor was indeed alive. The Ordinem, although it has curbed the expansion of crime families like the Norton’s which The Woman is associated with, poses no direct threat to her own life – why would she involve herself in something irrelevant?”

“Ha!” John laughed, shaking his head in disbelief, “You still think her so simple even after everything?”

“I never thought her _simple_ ,” Sherlock snarled, teeth barred aggressively.

“So quick you are to jump to her defense. You cannot be trusted to be unbiased when she is involved!”

“And you cannot be trusted to be unprejudiced!”

John waved his hand, “First, this is not about me, and second, I’m not prejudiced – “

“Doctor Watson –“ Mycroft tried to stop the conversation from edging closer to a topic they had all worked very hard to avoid since Sherlock’s return from his death, but his attempt was told off by John.

“Mycroft, don’t stop me, you know it’s true.” John stood, pacing back and forth as his temper mounted and his patience waned. “Let’s not pretend she hasn’t been manipulating Sherlock since she got here. She’s been using him, like she’s always used him, and she’ll use James to get to him.”

“Using James?! Just how do you suppose she’d do that?”

“By taking him away from his family, damn it, Sherlock!”  

The detective scoffed, dismissing such ridiculous notions, “ _My son_ is a seven old year boy, not an inanimate object to be stuffed into a suit case. The Woman understands this, and she has no interest in uprooting his life.”

John made a frustrated noise at the back of his throat. “Oh and you’d know, would you? By god, it’s not like this would be the first time she tried –”

…

A dead silence fell over the office.

Ah, there’s the other shoe.

John swore, under his breath, fist clenching over the arm rest, twisting away from his best friend to hide the shame that could not help but leach onto his face.

Mycroft sighed, his eyes falling shut, heavy with finality and resignation.

Anthea was the only one who didn’t react. In fact, she looked relieved. Like a chapter has closed. A debt paid. A sin absolved.

And Sherlock? If this was a case, a murder, his brain would have dived into overdrive, drawing connection, making deductions, his eyes darting so fast across the lines between the imaginary dotes that he would appear almost epileptic.

But this wasn’t a case. This wasn’t brain food. This was heartache of the acutest kind, and it paralyzed him, the truth striking something so deep that he could do nothing more than stare at the man he trusted the most. The words choked in his throat, dried on his tongue, and his eyes which were narrowed at Mycroft slowly widened as he leaned back his seat and became frightfully still.

He stared at John, his best friend who normally braved his whims and fancies with deadpan and a roll of his eyes. How ironic that he couldn’t even look at Sherlock now.

The past seven years, every dead end, every lost lead, every failed attempt at finding the Woman – it all came rushing back, like a wave sieging the stronghold of his self-control, that which he’d built to protect the soft inside where he was chaffed raw by sentiment. Its foundation shook, and he felt it crumble.

_Before I leave, there is one more thing…_

He remembered standing in this very office five years ago, before Reichenbach, finalizing the plans with Mycroft for the last time. And in a moment of weakness, he’d said:

 _Whether or not I should succeed, there will be a funeral for Sherlock Holmes, and the word will be out about my death. There is a chance that **she**_   _may come for James. If she does, I’d very much prefer that my son leaves with his mother._

And yet, three years later, when he was greeted by a five-year-old who'd inherited those big blue eyes that haunted him, he almost wished that he’d come back to an empty home.  _So she has left both of us. How lucky you are, child, to be ignorant of such abandonment._

Upon his return, his best friend, the most honorable man had stared at him in the eyes and said.  _I’m sorry mate. She never came._

What a lie.

“What did you do?” Sherlock demanded quietly.

Then, suddenly realizing that he was directing his question at the wrong party, Sherlock spun on his brother and bellowed, ten folds louder, “What did  ** _YOU DO_**?”

And before either John or Anthea could come to their senses, the detective had lunged for the older man, snarling as he grabbed his brother by his stiff collar and yanked him straight off his chair.

 “You bastard,” spat Sherlock, followed by a hollow laugh that was quite maniacal. “You promised me, you promised. What on earth did you do?!”

“Nothing. She’s alive, isn’t she? If I had let her take James,” gasped out Mycroft, “would you have come back from your 'holiday'?”

Breath ragged and heart drumming rapidly, Sherlock took two steps back. His hands shook, its violent momentum seemingly engulfing his whole body, which vibrated with the tumult of anger he could barely restrain. He took a breath, as though to quell the screaming voices in his head, but to no avail. Without warning, Sherlock swung for his brother again. His fist flied into Mycroft's jaw, full impact, sending the older man stumbling back and towards the ground, taking an expensive table lamp with him in the process. 

John yelled, rushing forth to grasp his best friend around the waist. "Oi, get a handle on yourself, Sherlock!"

But the detective easily shrugged out of his hold, and went for Mycroft again. This time, he was stopped by a firm hand pushing back against his chest, and small shorter body in his path.

"You get one shot, that's enough." Anthea did not raise her tone, but she meant business. Her whole person was.... open, alive, so dissimilar from the usual silent doll-like secretary she posed. John had never her heard speak with so much authority. 

Sherlock glared at the woman in front of him, still fuming, but eventually eased off. 

“When?! When did this happen? When had she come back?” He demanded instead as Mycroft slowly picked himself off the floor. 

Anthea glanced at John. _You’re his best friend. You tell him._

Well, what was John supposed to say? The Holmes boy was "kidnapped" for a week and brought home by his uncle, who explained that the "kidnapper" was asked to reconsider. That was the official story anyway; between the family, everyone knew what had really gone on, and it was an implicit agreement between all of them when Sherlock returned that they would not speak of what happened during Christmas of 1891. Mycroft didn’t give them details, but it didn’t require a great leap of imagination to guess his methods in retrieving James. The boy had been inconsolable, screaming for his “mama” until he had tired himself out and fallen asleep bundled in Sherlock’s blue stripped dressing gown. When the child awoke, he no longer screamed for Irene, and it was easy to pretend that the whole affair had been a bad dream.  

“It was six months after you 'died'. James was ill and she…She came. “John confessed. “I am sorry, Sherlock, for keeping this secret, but we all did what we thought was best for him. We had only just lost you, we couldn’t lose James as well. It - it would’ve destroyed Molly.”   

Sherlock tilted to side, a bit unsteady, and instinctively John reached for him, but Sherlock stumbled back, overwhelmed with all the things that should've have gone right but didn’t. There was nothing he could say. His friends, his entire family, from his best friend to his housekeeper, from his brother to his wife, every single one of them had lied to him for years. What he had believed to be dead-ends and false trails whilst abroad searching for Irene were entirely an illusion of his brother’s construct. Maybe Irene had been searching for him too? Maybe she’d thought, as he did, that the clues she had left behind for him were ignored and her sentiments outdated and unrequited. That he would have rather raise their son in the domesticity of married life with his wife in a stable home than with her, across oceans and continents, wrapped in the fabric of their game.

Deep within his mind palace, he was standing in that awkward asymmetrical room again, the one identical to the hotel room in Montenegro, with drizzling rain, white tulle curtains, and a rod-iron bed. On said bed was a woman with long black hair in soft, unbridled waves, rocking a giggling toddler boy. Looking up, she saw him standing by the door and a smile bloomed wide and true across her face. She beckoned him closer with an outreached hand, and he took it without hesitance, allowing her to draw him closer onto the bed. The boy had fallen asleep, a thumb in his mouth. The woman caressed his cheek tenderly and shifted her radiant smile from the child to the man beside her. Starlight danced in her eyes, bluer and more unfathomable than the cosmos, and her lips were dusky pink, unpainted and soft and asking to be kissed. She was so warm and alive.

_Won’t you stay with us, Mr. Holmes?_

“Yes.”

“What? Sherlock…”

In the Diogenes lounge, Sherlock’s eyes snapped open. His gaze darted across the room, across the faces that stared at him in concern, realizing that the illusion was only that. A shuttering breath tremored as it exited him; the air felt icy even on this hot July evening compared to his insides burning with want.

He needed to see her. To explain himself.

Now.

And this time he won’t leave so soon. What luxury it would be to ask to stay the night, to stay with her, even if it’s just to sit in her company for hours with nothing but silence to entertain them. Maybe he ought to bring James – no, no time, the boy ought to be prepared – he couldn’t be rushed, not in this matter.

Spinning his heels, Sherlock grabbed his jacket off his chair and made for the exit.  

“Oi, hold on a minute! Wait!” John called after him.

And just like a spell taking hold, Sherlock did.  The wise detective always listened to his good doctor, but when he turned to them, with his hands in his pocket and his eyes cold as gems, it was obvious that his obedience was a mockery. His face was closed, all layers of his trust shattered and replaced by a thick labyrinth of stone and ice and frightful apathy.

Mycroft recognized this Sherlock and this scene in his office instantly. He could pinpoint with ease the exact date and time that triggered this déjà vu. And he could laugh too, if his jaws were not throbbing and this situation hadn’t lost all vestige of control, because in his mind he could hear his brother’s voice, delivering those words devastating enough to break a woman’s heart.

_Sorry about dinner._

And it seemed, eight years later, history was about to repeat itself but with altered tides.

“Where are you going?” huffed John.

Sherlock smiled, his grin bitter and wide as a gaping wound, and announced,

“To see someone about a divorce.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, so sorry to have been gone for 9 months....X(. I made this chapter extra long to make up for it. Hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> Endnotes:  
> [1] Translation from Hindi: Mahabaleshwaraya Namah = I pray to Shiva, of great strength.
> 
> [2] Actual description of the victim


	12. XI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry for the delay, but..... life.

In general, Lestrade considered himself a good man, a man who upheld his duties to his city, honoured the badge, and provided for and loved his daughters as conscientiously as he knew how. At one point in time, he would even have called himself a good husband, one that made his wife happy, but she had left him despite his best efforts, and well… no point dwelling on the past.

It was late in the evening when Lestrade finally decided to turn in. Cecilia and Beatrice were tucked in and asleep, and Molly’s forensic report was beginning to read like Latin to his sleep-deprived and whiskey-blurred eyes. There were about two fingers worth of scotch left in his tumbler, but perhaps, mulled Lestrade for a moment as he pinched the bridge of his nose, he’s had enough.

Lestrade yawned, stretching out his stiff limbs. _Sleep. And then tomorrow, maybe Sherlock will turn up with some news from his visit to his brother._ Just as the thought passed his mind, a series of sharp and loud knocks – insensitively so, for such an hour - came from the door.

_Bloody hell._

Frowning, Lestrade thought twice about going for the door. It was late, and he was not someone who usually received company at odd hours of the night - official business or otherwise. With the threat of “the Ripper” looming over all their heads and the added scare of the psychotic killer being related to trained assassins - if Sherlock’s earlier deduction were to be believed - Lestrade was particularly agitated.

The knocks repeated themselves when he did not respond right away, louder and more obnoxious… which gave Lestrade some suspicions as to whom it might be, but just to be on the safe side, he still retrieved his revolver from the console drawer.

With as much agility and stealth as he could muster, he yanked open the door with his gun ablaze.

“Oh please, for God’s sake, put that away!”

And of course. There was Sherlock Holmes, England’s cleverest detective, equal parts brains and social illiteracy, propped against his door frame, batting away his gun with a floppy gesture.

“Sherlock! Do you have any idea what time -” Lestrade swallowed the rest of the sentence, as his eyes adjusted to the dark and he gradually took in the state of his nuisance-colleague-turned-ridiculous-friend.

“Are you… drunk?”

Said friend let out a scoff that may have been a burp in disguise, one which was saturated with a very telling odour.

Lestrade wrinkled his nose.

“I may have encountered... a bottle... or two on my way here. Now are you going to let me in, Gregory, or not?!”

“...Gregory?” Lestrade was too dumbfounded to object. Imagine that, Sherlock Holmes, holier-than-thou genius, drunk on his doorstep. This was more than out of the blue, it was out of character. Hell, the man could barely remember that his name started with a G when he was of sound mind, but now, three sheets to the wind, he...well, to be honest, he sounded kind of like Mycroft. All posh. Drunk, but posher. If that was even possible.  

And how in God’s name did Sherlock know where he lived - ah bloody hell, he slumped to the ground.

Dropping down to the steps so they both sat on his threshold, Lestrade grabbed Sherlock by the arm in case he decided to keel over, and sighed, “All right, all right, take it easy, mate. It’s half past eleven. I ought to get you home.”

Sherlock pouted - frickin’ pouted - at his grip and tried to pull away. “No no, I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine. I came to talk to you; it’s very important.”

“What’s so important that it can’t wait till the morning?”

The detective fell silent, his wobbling ceased, and a part of Lestrade was afraid the other man might’ve actually fallen asleep right then and there. Sherlock was always somewhat of a lightweight despite his height an his tolerance did not seem to improve with age.

Lestrade felt a yawn starting to form again the same moment Sherlock suddenly turned to him, glassy eyes both unfocused and aware at the same time, and said with no uncertainty, 

“Tell me how to get a divorce.”

…

There was a long moment of awkward silence, filled with nothing but crickets chirping in the bushes.

“Oh.” Lestrade uttered, the aborted yawn knocked out of him by Sherlock’s confession.

Lestrade was prepared for a lot of things, but he was not prepared for that. A part of him, the part that he self-labelled “the good man” wanted to pull Sherlock to his feet, dust him off, and send him home to sleep it off and forget this alcohol-induced non-sense. A divorce - what a horrific idea. But there was something on that troubled face…something only perhaps another divorcé could understand, that told him this was not alcohol-driven melodrama.

“You better come in for this.”

 

~~~

 

The candle burned low in the second floor parlour of 221B. White beeswax dripped soundlessly as the seconds and minutes trickled on late into the night, until the noises of the busy neighbourhood tired and waned, and the shadows of the mounted deer antlers were long and blurry against the dark velvet curtains.

Sally stifled a yawn, pausing the needlework in her hand, which were beginning to skew as the light grew dimmer and her patience grew shorter. James’s trousers always needed mending these days - the boy grew like a weed and was none too careful about falls and tumbles. The house was equipped to burn on gaslight, as it was the cheaper, brighter, and more industrial option, but gaslight didn’t burn as clean as beeswax and the missus never spent an extra penny on anything indulgent for herself other than the beeswax candles she liked to light at night.

(Sally had half a notion that the Holmeses were majorly loaded, an odd hybrid between old money and new money, but that was neither here nor there, since it was well known that Mycroft Holmes bottlenecked his brother’s stipend because of the younger man’s total lack of interest for finance.)

Sally stifled another yawn. Rubbing her eyes, she glanced up at the clock sitting on the mantel of the fireplace - three minutes to midnight - before casting a cautious glimpse at the quiet mistress of the house sitting in her armchair, wordlessly stitching a delicate little embroidery pattern. Though admirable in its neat and tidy technique, much like a physician’s sutures, Molly’s needlework was neither overly artistic nor imaginative. One could tell that she had no great love for it other than as a tool to pass the long hours sitting in wait by the candlelight.

Sherlock, was once again, nowhere to be found. Since he and Dr Watson made off from the morgue this afternoon, Baker Street and its inhabitants haven’t heard a meep from him. James had spent the evening doing whatever shenanigans with the shop boy Davy at the chemist’s place around the corner, and was distracted from the tension in his home. It was only come bed time, when being tucked into bed by his mummy did he remember to ask where his father was. Molly had used the opportunity to telephone the Watson’s to see if Mary had any idea what was going on with their husbands, only to learn that John had come home hours ago from meeting with Mycroft.

The good doctor had managed to offer some quelling explanation about how the Holmes brothers needed time alone to discuss “classified” information for the sake of national security, but for some reason, his excuse accomplished very little in the way of easing the agitation festering in the back of Molly’s mind.

Sherlock had always been...eccentric. Running about, being less than socially acceptable was rather his stock-in-trade. Whatever case he’d been on before, he’d always come home either in high spirits having solved it, or in broody contemplative silence when he couldn’t. At worst (or best, for it could be somewhat entertaining), he would stomp around his home raving madly about one thing or another that no one else could understand.

But something felt different this time. Ever since Lord Aldenham’s party, something had been off with everybody. Mrs Hudson. John. Even Mary. But most of all Sherlock.

Molly felt it, and what she suspected, her Lady’s Maid knew to be true. Sally could not claim that Sherlock Holmes had, within the span of three days, acquired himself a mistress, without committing the foolish offence of jumping to conclusion - the pitfall of every zealous but inattentive detective. Nevertheless, it was safe to say that there were plenty of reasons why one would consider this “Irene” woman to be of dubious character.

For one thing, when Sally and James were sifting through the archives at the library this afternoon, they’d discovered something extremely alarming. Or rather, it was what they didn’t discover.

_Every newsprint tracing back several months from April of 1888 was missing. The librarian, although confused, attributed it to a clerical error. There were recent reorganizations being done to open up more space in the archives; someone must’ve lost or tossed out the newspapers by accident during the shuffling. But it was too big of a coincidence not to rouse suspicion for James and herself…_

_“Why do you suppose Bel doesn’t want to tell me what she’d found in her father’s journals?” The boy had asked when they were alone. “What could be so terrible that she wouldn’t confide in me? She used to tell me everything!”_

_“I haven’t the faintest, Master James.”_

_“You know Sally, I can tell when you’re lying. I’m not stupid,” accused James bluntly. He turned on her then, little arms crossed and feet planted apart in a confrontational stance. For a seven-year-old, the boy had no issues grasping the art of being dramatic. “Have you met her before last night?”_ _  
_

_“No.”_

_“Didn’t think so. Then, you will tell me what happened at the party with my Father and this woman. You must’ve seen something, or else why would you be interested in helping me?”_

_“It’s… it’s not…proper…for a boy your age to know such things.” She settled on a vague answer. Really, what was she to say? That she caught his father, a man who he idolized, in an incriminating scenario with a woman who was not his mother? The child was precocious enough as it was, but sometimes it was downright dangerous how much he could gleam by observing the adults around him._

_“Would Mummy be upset if she found out?”_

“Sally.”

“Sally!”

The maid flinched, “Yes, missus!”

Molly glanced up from the work at hand and assessed her curiously, “Is everything alright?”

“I - pardon me, madam. My head must’ve wandered off.”

“Something on your mind?”

“No. No, not in particular. Just this… you know -” Sally shook her head. “Could I get you anything, madam, tea perhaps?”

“I’m fine for now.” Molly returned her attention back to the needle and thread, but continued on to say, “You don’t have to sit with me, Sally. It’s late, you should retire.”

“It’s late indeed, Missus,” replied Sally pointedly.  She hated seeing Molly like this, waiting dutifully while that son of a - ahem - was out doing God knows what… or who.

 _He could be in her bed right now, you don’t know he isn’t_ , thought Sally.  

"I’ll wait for him awhile longer. It's all right - you can go - I'll manage on my own.”

“I don’t mind staying.” And that was true. She didn’t mind at all. Molly was always good company, and she sometimes had interesting stories to tell about the cases she had assisted with and the patients she had cared for during her fellowship in Paris.

Clearing her throat, Sally changed the subject. No need to have Molly worry unnecessarily over things that are neither confirmed nor within their control. “So I hear that the Lady Dowager has invited you all over on Saturday.”

“Yes!” Molly brightened at the mention of Violet. “Although when Mummy says it’ll be a ‘small gathering of friends’,” Molly imitated with just a twinge of a French accent, “it means all the important families will be there. Christmas two winters ago, she invited half the court to Eastbourne and half the court actually showed up. I thought the Princess of Wales was going to throw a fit that her party wasn’t half as successful in comparison.”

Sally snickered, “Who could blame them? The Lady Dowager is a difficult woman to refuse.”

Molly grinned sheepishly, “Indeed, which is why I’m sure that this ‘garden party’ will inevitably turn into a Saturday-to-Monday. Mummy refrains from mentioning this little fact for fear that Sherlock will refuse to attend if he knew he’d be trapped by her society for the entire weekend. As for myself, I won’t be attending either way.”

“Why ever not?”

“I’ve been invited to a conference at the Edinburgh School for Women as one of the guest speakers. Given my education abroad, I’ll be there to shed some light on opportunities outside of the British Isles. It’s the coming Monday, and there’s going to be a reception for the guests on Saturday night. The headmistress Dr Jex-Blake contacted me weeks ago, I couldn’t possibly cancel at the last minute. I’ve written to Mummy explaining the situation; I’m sure she’ll understand. She’s always been a keen supporter of female advancement.”

“A medical conference, how exciting! It will be most refreshing to get out of the house.”  

“Yes precisely,” smiled Molly, genuinely enthused. Leaning closer, she teased in a mock-conspiratorial tone, “Much more stimulating than a country house party, in my opinion. God knows I love Mummy, but I hear that the Crawleys are going to be there, and I simply can’t bear the thought of having to deal with two Violets quibbling at each other for three days. You could come with me to Edinburgh if you’d like. I’m sure Mrs Hudson won’t miss you for a weekend.”

“Oh…I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be my place.”

Molly immediately set aside her embroidery and admonished sharply, “Nonsense! Some would say the same thing about me and my education - what, mother of a future marquess shouldn’t be seen walking about giving lectures on careers and science.”

Now it was Sally’s turn to be sheepish. “Actually, Missus, I find physiology and anatomy all...rather dry. What I mean is - if you’ll forgive my saying so - while it is perfectly interesting when tied to a murder, the pure study of it I’m afraid is not my cup of tea. If there is ever such a conference on the study of crime or forensics, I will surely not miss it.”

“Oh.” Molly drew back slightly, realizing that she might’ve been overly ardent, but also in part from disappointment. She had hoped that she’d have some company on this trip. Dr. Jex-Blake was a lovely person, but Molly would hardly know anyone else at this conference, having been confined to the domestic life for so many years. Nevertheless, she nodded and offered a smile in understanding. “I suppose that’s fair. To each their own, as it were. Truly, I do wish you’d come, but if it does not cater to your interest, I will not pressure you.”

 _Oh missus_ , Sally thought to herself, _Holmes should consider himself lucky to have such a wife…_

_Oh damn…_

The thought struck her just as she was beginning to feel settled and content in the easy sisterly companionship slowly establishing itself between the two women, and the abruptness of the realization severed within a fraction of a second whatever happy notions Sally may have been entertaining. Molly may count her absence to be a blessing, but Sherlock would still have to visit his mother along with James. With Violet being the social butterfly type, engaging in any social forum at her behest guaranteed rubbing elbows with perfumed ladies in their summer laces, and in this particular instance, it included that pernicious Katherine Wolfe. Underl the scrutiny of others, Sherlock and that woman would have to behave themselves during the day - or not, knowing Sherlock’s predilection for trouble - but at night…  

 _Shit_ , Sally internally cursed. She was an English maid working in an upper class family, so naturally she was not ignorant of the relations that happened after dark at these large country house parties. It was an open secret among polite society and the staff that served them that house parties were prime opportunities for lovers to rendez-vous with each other. It was practically in a good hostess’s unwritten manual that she shall strategically assign bedrooms to facilitate these arrangements after the candles are blown.

The Double Duchess of Devonshire was known to indulge in such practices as a hostess and the Dowager Marchioness of Windermere was no exception to this practice.

 _And sweet baby Jesus_ , cursed Sally inwardly. _She’s a Frenchwoman on top of that._   

It was not that she believed the Lady Dowager would allow her son to be unfaithful to his wife under her own roof, but the detective was nothing if not unconcerned about rules, and it was entirely possible that Miss Wolfe’s seductive wiles might just succeed in luring him into her bed - or worse - encourage him to invite her to his.

“Miss Wolfe will be there,” Sally blurted out before she could help herself. From the minute change in Molly’s expression, Sally knew that the other woman was slightly perturbed by that idea as well. “I - I ...”

 _Seriously, Donovan? Say what you mean for_ _once_! Sally berated herself, but her mouth seemed divorced from her heart.  “I - I heard from the staff at Ritchall that - that she is a very interesting lady.”

_Oh for Pete’s sake, Donovan, you bloody coward, seriously?_

Sally had expected some kind of response from the other woman, but Molly sat there, silent and unmoving except for the fidgeting of her fingers picking at a loose thread on her embroidery.  

“Missus?” Sally reached forward and lightly touched her forearm. “Missus.”

Molly blinked twice, quickly and with a dainty shake of her head, as if dispelling herself from whatever web of thought she was caught in, and reinforced the smile that had slipped from her face, “I’m sorry, Sally, what were you saying? Oh yes, Miss Wolfe. She is indeed a very striking woman. Even my husband seemed quite taken by her.”

 _My husband_. Sally watched her carefully, but was unable to tell whether her choice of word was intentionally chosen to reiterate her position in this household or simply an undevised slip of the tongue.

_Should I just tell her?_

_Yes. She deserves to know._

“Missus, I’ve been meaning to -”

“It’s late, Sally,” interrupted Molly, threading her needle parallel against the silk, and set it aside with finality this time. Smoothing her nightgown, she collected her shawl and stood. “We need our sleep. Unlike Sherlock, we are only human ourselves.”

“I - ” Sally gnawed on her lips, frustrated and unwilling to let the matter go. But ultimately, she relented, seeing that now was not the most opportune time, as Molly appeared quite disinclined to hear any more of it. Standing herself, Sally bent slightly at the knee and bobbed a polite, subtle curtsy, “Very well, madam. I’ll go get the bed ready.”

“No,” Molly stopped her, catching her hand. “It’s fine. Thank you for staying up so late with me. You head on downstairs. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Sally considered her mistress for a moment, before reluctantly taking the candlestick and bid her goodnight. As she approached the turn in the stairs, she gazed back up through the open door of the drawing room, and saw Molly by the window, pulling aside the curtains and staring out into the darkened street, perhaps still hoping that Sherlock would come home to her tonight.

Wherever he was, Sally knew that he would not.

 

~~~

 

“Drink.”

A hot cup was placed onto the table with a loud clink.

Way too loud.

The unspoken complaint vaguely crossed his mind as Sherlock groaned. Lifting his head from his hands minutely to peer into the dark, toxic-sludge-like liquid, he wrinkled his nose. “What is this?”

“It’s tea,” replied his gracious host with a shrug, either oblivious or nonchalant about his guest's massive headache. “Now drink up.”

“Inspector,” Sherlock levelled him with a dry glare. “I am British. I know tea. This is not tea. If you wanted to poison me you could’ve just said so, I’m sure more than a couple of people would love to corroborate.”

Lestrade merely rolled his eyes. “Just drink it.”  

Still suspicious, Sherlock sniffed his beverage before hesitantly taking a cautious sip. The tea was strong and bitter, but it gave contrast to the bitterness that was already lingering in his mouth. He swallowed it and then begrudgingly finished the rest.

“Shut up. My head is pounding.”

Lestrade rolled his eyes again. “You have to know I can’t control how ‘loudly’ I think, right?”

That got a chuckle out of Sherlock, but Lestrade couldn’t detect much mirth from it. Watching the younger man gulp down the hot beverage, it was clear that he was at a new level of miserable. Lestrade sighed, taking pity on him and nudged a plate of biscuits forward.

“Eat these as well, or the alcohol plus the tea are going to really churn your empty stomach.”

Sherlock frowned, feeling as though he was being talked down to like a bloody foolish child, but he took the biscuits and stuffed them into his mouth without complaint. He felt too awful to argue. Lestrade poured him some more water, made him drink it, and when Sherlock seemed to tolerate it without hints of hurling, the good policeman plied him with more bread and cheese.

The man was a wreck, and Lestrade knew that he’d better prepare some pillows and blankets for him. The hour hand was hitting one by the time Sherlock had recovered enough to be of any use. No way he was going home tonight. Especially in this state.

Yet once the effects of the alcohol started to wear off, Sherlock had a change of heart. With his senses coming back to him, self-awareness and a sense of embarrassment did too. He felt the heat of it rise from his collar all the way to the tip of his ears.  

 _Why did he come here? What on Earth was he thinking?!_ If John didn’t even understand, what hope did Lestrade have to offer enlightenment to him at a time like this…

Not to mention, the matter was pertaining to that of his deepest, unspoken secrets. When it struck his fancy, Sherlock could talk for aeons without resting for breath, but that was The Work, that was the best part of him, his proudest self, his face that he presented to the world.

 _T_ _hat_ was Sherlock Holmes.

But this… this private, private life that he has - had - it did not belong in front of an audience.

 _This. This is your heart._ He recalled his own prophetic words to her that night they ruined each other. _And you should never let it rule your head._

To think he was about to confess everything to Lestrade because of a drunken miscalculation. Horrific.  

Best make an exit while he could still scrape together some shred of dignity.

Clearing his throat, Sherlock adjusted his suit jacket and moved to stand up. “Well, thanks for that. I best be going.”

“Sit. Down,” commanded his colleague-turned-friend. “You came to my house at this ungodly hour blabbering like a lunatic and you really expect me to just - what - let you walk away?”

“This was a mistake,” Sherlock grumbled, tugging his tie loose and rubbing a tired hand across his face.

“Clearly. Because Molly is a saint. Even a simple man could see that you have been gifted - blessed even - with the best wife, and yet you, a self-proclaimed proper genius can’t see how lucky you are. Divorce.” Lestrade scoffed.  “You are an ungrateful bastard, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Ungrateful?” Sherlock gritted his teeth, knuckles turning white. He looked ready to bolt. “What, pray tell Lestrade, am I supposed to be grateful for? Her complacent participation, if not encouragement, of the charade that Mycroft and John orchestrated to fool me into domesticity? Or worse, her wilful deceit?”   

Lestrade frowned, brows screwing tightly together in equal mix exasperation and confusion. “You really don't understand her do you?”

Sherlock ignored him. “You are defending Molly because you like her.”

“Everyone likes Molly.”

“Not the way you do.”  

“Sherlock-”

“No no, don’t be alarmed. I’m merely stating a fact. You don’t have to look so uncomfortable. It doesn’t bother me in the least.”

“It doesn’t - it damn well should! You just found out that another man possibly - _hypothetically_ \- has romantic feelings for your wife. For crying out loud, you should be bothered; hell, you should be furious!”

But Sherlock only dismissed him with a careless wave. “I’ve known for years. Quite frankly, I had half hoped you’d act on those feelings in the years I’d been away, though knowing Mycroft had kept a keen eye on Baker Street, it would’ve been a futile attempt.” He’d only recently gained the understanding of just _how keen_ Mycroft’s watch had been.

“What are you on about? Sherlock-”

“Do you claim to have no knowledge of it?”

“Knowledge of what?” Lestrade challenged, incredulous. _Speak,_ his gaze ordered, stern like a teacher’s, disappointed and tired, but clinging onto a tenacious curiosity to hear the explanation all the same.

Lestrade watched the young man scowl and drum his fingers impatiently against the armrest. His shoulder was tense, his jaw clenched, his whole body practically vibrating with pent up stress and eagerness to escape. But Lestrade was not a seasoned policeman for nothing. Sherlock _will_ explain himself, and he will not be off the hook until he does.

Slowly, Sherlock leaned back in his seat.

But it wasn’t anything in the way Lestrade stared at him, beseeching him to stay, that made him do so.

It was that he had suddenly understood Lestrade’s expectation to hear a confession that was truly awful. It was Lestrade’s predisposition towards the negative, his pre-emptive opinion that whatever had occurred to drive Sherlock to this moment in time must be morally heinous, and which fault must be found with Sherlock’s misconducts and those of his “accomplice”.

It was also, partially, due to the sudden surge of guilt that arose from secondary contemplation of the implications of his earlier thoughts. When he had stood to leave, his primary concern had been his own image. Indeed, Sherlock had always believed that the self with which he associated The Work was his proudest, one which he had no hesitation - or in fact was rather eager - to show to the world. While this is true, the flip side of the argument would be that the “other” face, one that he’d rather not wear in front of Lestrade, that he could not bring himself to reveal to the world, was the one that carried the shame.

The face he wore during every smile, every whisper, every dangerous moment he shared with Irene Adler. The face that only she sees. The face that was _her_ Sherlock.

 _How,_ he cursed himself, _could he allow that side of himself to be tainted with something as degrading as shame?_

He claimed all along that it was because of privacy that he kept her like a secret close to his chest, folded between layers of armour that protected him as Sherlock Holmes.

_I didn’t want to share her, share ‘us’, with anyone._

But he knew better now than to believe that he had any degree of a private life. Between the brother who practically raised him, and the friend who was even closer to him than a brother, he never had any real secrets.

All of it - a rose-tinted world that belonged to just the two of them, a beautiful memory preserved for comfort on particularly nostalgic afternoons - was an illusion, a farce carried on behind a one way mirror.

They had always had an audience.    

So now he knew that the world knew, what was the point in pretending to avoid conversations in the name of 'privacy'? Sherlock was confident that he wasn’t ashamed of her - of Irene - or of the consequences of any of their actions.

There was no longer any need to keep her folded up and hidden. To continue down this course of action would be dishonouring her and himself. In fact, hiding his history with Irene Adler from the public eye was probably the one thing Mycroft and John were counting on. They had probably rather hoped he would keep up the appearance of his status quo in favour of preserving 'privacy', so that they could go on pretending that their problem was 'Irene Adler' - an independent entity - and not 'Irene and Sherlock' as a conjoined unit.

“I admit that in the beginning I’d been less than forthcoming, but surely after all this time, after my ‘demise’ at Reichenbach Falls, you’d know the truth about my son. You never mentioned James going missing during the first winter I was away, I assume now it’s because of Mycroft’s order. ”

 _There was no bliss in ignorance, none_ , thought Sherlock, _none whatsoever_.

Ignorance is a numbers game, and the odds are set against the ignorant party from the start. Ignorance is temporal, suspenseful, waiting, waiting for the other shoe to drop, because the shoe always drops, and when it does, one cannot reasonably expect it to make no sound.

Lestrade sighed, deflating.

“It was none of my business. But I suspected…hell, I knew. No one told me...but I knew. It was damn obvious too. The boy is a copy of you, no doubt about it, but maybe that’s why people ignored the fact that he looks nothing like Molly. Maternity is usually not under question…”

The undertone of Lestrade’s remark was not lost on Sherlock, for he scoffed sharply and tossed his gaze to the side in defiance. “Listen to yourself, Lestrade, you sound just like them. All righteous and preaching - I didn’t come here to be scolded. If I wanted that, I’d stayed at my brother’s place. Or with John. He’s more than happy to talk his mouth off. And for the record-” Sherlock turned his head to combat the other’s disapproving stare with a scathing one in return. “Irene Adler is not my mistress. She never was. And James is _our_ son, mine and hers.”

It wasn’t until the words tumbling off his tongue dropped like boulders in its every syllable that Sherlock realized that it was the first time he’d admitted this out loud.  

Lestrade frowned.

_Irene Adler?_

Seven years and he had not heard Sherlock breathe that name once, such that the four syllables were entirely foreign to him.

“Where is she now?” inquired Lestrade.

But it was Sherlock’s turn to be surprised, “Do you not read the papers?” He pondered in disbelief, before sudden realization. The Belgravia case was above the Met. Above Lestrade. The Woman only dealt with the highest in the land. “Oh I see. You've never met her before. Yes that's right...”

The policeman took a moment for the words to sink in. _Newspaper._ His gaze slid to the folded print abandoned on his round table by the parlour window where he usually took his breakfast.

Understanding struck him in an instant, and he whipped around to stare at Sherlock. Questions dashed across his mind in quick succession, so many that he could barely grasp the first before another formed and took its place. _Why has she returned? How did the engagement come about? Why the alias?_ Despite the myriad of questions that he couldn’t answer, Lestrade formed a deduction of his own, one which he was sure connected the Adler/Wolfe woman directly to himself, and therefore made her his business too.    

It was too much of a coincidence for Lestrade to ignore, that Sherlock’s personal life should be thrown into chaos the same time that London is on the brink of another serial-killing-driven panic.  

“She's connected to the Ripper case, isn’t she?”

Sherlock did not bat an eye, but neither did he attempt to deny it. Instead, he spoke measuredly, “That’s hardly why I’m here."

Picking up his leftover scotch, Lestrade snorted before taking a sip and replied, “No, well, you're here to ruin your wife’s reputation. Though I fail to see how you could possibly think you could bully your way out of your marriage.”

“I’m not attempting to bully anyone! I assumed that there would be tedious involvement of lawyers to settle the matter swiftly and silently, as civil people do.”

At that, Lestrade laughed. _Civil._ There was positively nothing civil about the dissolution of a marriage. How naïve the younger man truly was! Or perhaps… Lestrade felt a pang of pity for his friend sitting before him, incensed and clearly out of his depth, because for the first time since he knelt stiffly at the altar on that snowy February day, Sherlock may have finally come to feel just how heavy and binding were his words to his bride.

He may not have meant much of it when he uttered ‘in the presence of God I make this vow’, but the law and the church and the two hundred or so people who had witnessed his union would hold him accountable.    

While his wife’s heart would be broken by his insincerity, if not infidelity, it mattered little to the rest of the world that he never loved her. As long as she was faithful and dutiful, of sound mind and fertile, he had no grounds for termination of their marriage.  

And Lestrade told him exactly that. Frankly, he was surprised that Sherlock didn’t know.

“It’s just not done, Sherlock.”

It was best to level with him, Lestrade decided. Sherlock was stubborn, but once he saw that his was an impossible situation in which hundreds if not thousands of people before him who fell out of love had found themselves trapped, then he would not go on blindly pursuing this pointless delusion. Although in his case, Lestrade suspected Sherlock had never fallen in love in the first place, at least, not with his wife.

“Bollocks. You did it!”

“Yes, because _my wife_ had betrayed me with half a dozen men! I had proof in photograph and eye-witness!” Lestrade just about shouted his confession. His divorce wasn’t exactly his proudest moment; neither was any divorce the proudest moment of any man for that matter. Though it was true that his wife took most of the blunt for public shaming - rightfully deserved in his opinion - it was still humiliating for him as the cuckolded husband. No man wanted to be known for being the moron that was taken for a ride by their spouse.

“ _Your_ s, however, has been nothing but faithful. Are you willing to stand in front of a judge and accuse her of adultery? If you fail, your case will be thrown out, and everyone will know that the ‘Great Sherlock Holmes’ wishes to part with his wife. Rumours will start, as they do, putting Molly’s integrity and ability as a woman and wife into question, even though none of it is true. If you succeed, she will be disgraced and shunned as a social pariah amongst your blue-blooded peers. And what of James, your son, Mycroft’s heir? How will it reflect on him that his mother is a tried adulterer.”

Sherlock’s alcohol-blurred eyes darted swiftly from side to side, trying desperately to find a loophole in Lestrade’s argument, but the seconds ticked on, and he realized he couldn’t. Knuckles tightening, he tackled another angle.

“Suppose then that I convince my wife to divorce me. Surely she would have-”

“What? Valid ground for petition? She is a _woman,_ Sherlock, your property for all intents and purposes-”

The man was instantly riled, “How backwards of you-”

“I _know_ she is her own person in spirit and mind, but it doesn’t matter what you and I think! She is yours, by the letter of the law. An unfaithful husband is hardly justification for termination of any marriage. You would have to be tried and found guilty of either bigamy, sodomy, incest, or acts of unusual cruelty in addition to adultery. So unless you are otherwise married, or have been having relations with John or your brother, or have been physically abusing Molly to the point where her life is in danger, then I don’t see how your marriage can be dissolved.”

Lestrade held the detective’s heady gaze, and watched as the gears in his head turned and turned and turned...computing all the possible outcomes and fallouts, until it arrived at a singular conclusion, and the light in those green eyes dimmed, like a machine shutting down.

“I see,” said Sherlock. His fists loosened, blood returning to those taunt white knuckles.

With a sigh, he fell back against the cushion of the sofa, the fight evaporating from his bones.

Lestrade shook his head, glad that it was over, but at the same time, could not help a twinge in his chest.

Sherlock was a lot of things: obstinate, rebellious, impulsive, inconsiderate, and at times cold, but he was never senseless or cruel. It was one of the reasons why Lestrade stuck by him so resolutely in those early days when the man’s name had not yet been blown up into fame - or infamy, according to the more conservative types.  

As a colleague, Lestrade trusted his judgement, relied on his abilities, and now, after years of turbulent collaboration paving path towards an unlikely yet solid friendship, they’ve developed an understanding with each other. Though it may not run as deeply as that which he shared with John, it was nevertheless enough to propel Sherlock to come to the inspector’s home in his hour of ambivalence, and which motivated the inspector to receive him despite his erratic state. It was also this understanding that told Lestrade Sherlock had been convinced by his arguments, bested by the logic and the truth that he presented and by the compassion and fondness that Sherlock himself harboured for Molly.

Sherlock may not have ever loved her or yearned for her the way he could still yearn for James’s mother despite nearly a decade of separation, but he could not see harm befall her, especially if said harm was to be instigated by himself.

A part of Lestrade even sympathized with Sherlock’s position. First, he would have to rescind his earlier statement comparing Sherlock to other men who’d fallen out of love with their wives, for Sherlock's feelings and affection had remained unchanged. The woman - _that_ woman - the one who gave him James, she had always been a part of him, locked up and buried in the privacy of his mind, that until this moment he had never had occasion to allow it to be free.

His domestic life - his marriage, his brother, his best friends - it had never felt like a shackle to Sherlock before. On the contrary, they were his safety net, his buttresses, and some would even say, his moral compass. He depended on them, loved them in his own peculiar ways, and there had been no real conflict, because for the most part, what he wanted were in alignment with what they felt he needed.  

Until now.

Suddenly, he was all alone in his want, in this…insatiable need to reclaim what he had lost. Where once he received support, now there were only judgement and scolding. It was no wonder the man was miserable.

Marriage binds. That is its purpose, and maybe, just maybe, pondered Lestrade, Sherlock had convinced himself that he was doing this for the right reasons. Sherlock wanted liberation, not just for himself but for Molly too: freedom to go and love another, to be with another who could return her goodness and kindness and sentiment.

It was a twisted logic, of course. With those passion-blinded eyes, he must not have seen the selfishness in his actions, but having heard Lestrade’s explanation, it was obvious Sherlock’s shrewd sensibility was beginning to return to him.

Though he may not be the best husband, he was on average adequate, and he really tried, which is more than what can be said for most. He remembered birthdays and anniversaries, flowers and gifts. He did, in the best way he an English gentleman knew how, take care of Molly. He couldn’t give her his romantic love - that was beyond him - but he gave her everything else: his respect, his compassion, his home, his finances, and most importantly, his support of her academic and career ambitions.

Molly was held in the highest regards in Sherlock’s eyes, as she often was by those who knew her, for indeed she was capable, modern and intelligent - all the reasons why one would assume she could weather the scandal of a divorce. But Lestrade knew better that someone must take on the duty to remind the world that she was in spite of all her achievement still a woman, and if said duty just so happened to fall on himself, then so be it.

A single woman’s prospects were narrow in range and too often fraught with peril without the protection of either a handsome inheritance or a living male figure, be it father, brother or husband. It was a difficult world for a woman to stand alone. It required considerable courage and fortitude, and even then, there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t end disastrously. Perhaps one day women would be recognized as men’s equals, but not in 1896, not then.

“I can’t fix it, can I?” Sherlock said after a long pensive silence.

“No,” responded his friend honestly. “I’m sorry mate.”

“Thank you…” Sherlock mumbled, eyes falling shut, exhaustion obvious in more ways than one. “...Greg.”

With a sigh, the older man stood and touched his shoulder gently. “You stay here, I’ll get you some pillows and blankets. Have a sleep, it’ll all be better in the morning.”

It would be easy, dear Readers, for you to do as I have at this moment and point fingers, asking accusatorily ‘why not?’ Why would a man have to stay with a wife he doesn’t love? Why should a woman cling to a husband who didn’t do as he promised, to love, hold and cherish? At one point in time, I too had these questions, spurring from my own more modern stance. After decades of research, I can only say that I grew to understand the decisions made by the players in this story. I have come to believe as they had believed, that more often than not there isn’t a why, there is only what is. And the reality of living is that we don’t have the option to throw away the cards in our hands, but that we can only continue to play with what we have.  

 

~~~

 

Irene woke with a start, the figments of a dream dissipating as soon as her eyes focused on the crown mouldings along her bedroom ceiling.  

It wasn’t a nightmare, that much she was certain. The rush of terror thrusting her into the waking world, heart-pounding, drenched in cold sweat with a mouth as dry as the Sahara - that had become as familiar to her as her own reflection.

On some mornings, she thought they were both equally terrifying.

But not today. The dream from which she had just emerged was of another kind. She could still taste the sweetness on her tongue, but she struggled to hang on to it. It – the memory – was as slippery as water between her fingers, escaping through her grasp and leaving behind only a vague feeling that she couldn’t quite describe.

Lifting her head from her pillow, she was startled by the sight of Belgravia’s tulle white curtains that on any other morning would barely warrant consideration, but on this one, served well to breathe sudden life into that fading dream. It was then, watching those drapes fluttering in the summer breeze, that she remembered: the drizzling rain, seaside air, a wrought iron bed…

_Montenegro._

And as for the sweetness on her tongue?

 _Well_ , she concluded, as she recalled the sea-side restaurant in Montenegro where they had their last supper and his wistful smile as he sent her abroad Αιγις, the Greek ship that was supposed to take her to New York. _It must’ve been that kiss, wasn't it?_

Irene shuffled across her bedroom to close the window. Standing between the curtains in the morning light, she could almost feel the ghost of his fingers against her spine, the gentle tug they gave as he worked the laces of her corset to help her get ready.

He had walked her to the port, her hand coiled around his elbow, appearing very much like a pair of young birds in love.

_“Well, Miss Adler. Afterlife awaits.”_

_“Yes, I suppose it does.”_

_“Do remember to behave,”_ he had murmured as he pressed his lips against her knuckles, cold and white from the harbour wind. Her gloves were somewhere in her pockets, but she was glad to feel the press of his skin against hers.

 _“I make no promises.”_ She remembered whispering those words against the shell of his ear, how she had lingered on her tiptoes, her eyes falling shut, the tightness in her stomach clenching most painfully as she leaned into the warmth of his cheek.

And then his wide palm was at the back of her neck, and he pulled away just enough to allow for their lips to come together again for one last time. It was all incredibly indiscreet and un-British of them, to be so…transparent about their feelings, but for that brief moment she did not care about anything else but the man and the sea that was about to divide their continents. For all she had known, this would’ve been the last time she’d ever taste those lips, and Sherlock must’ve known it too, because he had kissed her as if he hadn’t known how to say goodbye. And even as one hand had wrapped around her, holding her ever more tightly, the other had already been clutching her shoulder, ready to push her away.

Oh, but she had been able to tell, that he hadn’t been ready to let her go, and frankly, neither had she. If she’d known that aside from her sparse luggage, she was already carrying another, far more precious cargo, she really might not have. Because dear God, she really hadn’t been ready for that.

Those impossibly undiscernible eyes had gazed down at her, holding every colour ever known, and Irene had found it hard to keep the stinging in her nose from bringing forth tears. Holding onto his lapels, Irene had decided against goodbyes, because goodbye meant finality, meant letting go, finished. She had been fairly certain that whatever they were, had, could never be finished, and she would always carry a part of this with her.

She just hadn’t meant for that to be quite so literal…

 _“Farewell.”_ That was her last word to him, and she had chosen them with care, because she had meant that exactly. Fare well. Her thoughts as The Aegis pulled away from shore were on James Moriarty and on his imminent and inevitable confrontation with the detective. Sherlock was brilliant of course, but up against Moriarty, even Irene had no confidence to say who would emerge victorious

So, she had wished him well, and hoped, and prayed, that he’d live.

And he did. He had lived and thrived. Yet she…

Irene pulled her mind from the depth of her memory, and wondered if he had realized how very, very sentimental their goodbye had been. As well, she wondered if she had attempted to curb that damning sentimentality, would she have missed him quite as terribly as she had these many years?

Would she have summoned enough resolve to walk into the doctor’s office in Philadelphia like she was supposed to, to complete her very discreet (and very illegal) appointment?

She had stood there on the snow-covered doorstep for a good ten minutes, until she couldn’t feel her toes in her boots. As the cold became unbearable, the first thought that ran through her mind was that if even she could not withstand the chill then surely the child could not either.

Perhaps that was when she had known, that it was all too late for her.

And this time, Sherlock would see it as a second chance, but she knew better than that. Their game had never ended, it’d merely been put on hold, and this - her return, the Ripper - this was all just a continuation of the storm that had been brewing over their heads since the day she allowed herself to fall victim to Moriarty’s manipulation.

She had been his stupid little pawn, and even when she realized that she’d been used, she had only thought of herself as a tool with which Jim had used to taunt Sherlock, and in turn, undermine Mycroft.

She knew better now, but Sherlock still had no idea that the game he thought he played with Jim had never been contained between the two of them. Jim was fascinated by Sherlock, certainly, but Sherlock had only ever been a partial target of his plotting and orchestration. Sherlock had not been his end game; at best, he was a means to an end. No, what Jim had had his sights on was greater yet.

And look where that got him: in a state worse than death.

Jim had been under the Preceptor’s wings, and that kind of relationship could never be sustained between a mentor who refused to be surpassed and a pupil as…changeable as Moriarty. Jim had wanted to have nothing but the sky above him, and even then, if he could, he would not hesitate to bring down the sky.

But the Preceptor had known him too well, and in going against the Ordinem, Jim had taken a gamble he did not have the assets to pay off. Perhaps if he had allowed himself and his network to grow for another couple of years, half a decade, and allowed it to fester like an unculled infection, then perhaps he would’ve succeeded. If he’d simply waited….

Irene breathed an airy chuckle. Waited. Jim was not the waiting type.

Jim had wanted life fast and hard; he had leaped and landed in a great big splat. If Sebastian had been a more reasonable lover, he would’ve let Jim die, but the colonel was a man driven by his passions and he still believed that there was a chance Jim could be cured, restored, a fantasy that Irene was all too happy to cultivate.  

Unlike Jim, Irene was a patient woman, and she sought to finish what he started.

With a sigh, Irene turned away from the sunlight.

Her underclothes were laid out over the ottoman,freshly laundered. She shrugged out of her nightgown, and rang for the maids. There was a few moments delay before her bedroom door swung open.

“Good morning, Miss Adler.” Soolin stood there between the door frame, and greeted her pleasantly.  Her black hair was gathered into a thick swath at the base of her neck, and unlike her usual oriental attire, today she was donned in typical western fashion.

Irene held back a frown. Soolin was not a fighter by any stretch of the definition, but she was lithe and agile, and startlingly stronger than she appeared. Once, Irene had witnessed her scale a four-storey wall in a matter of minutes, no ropes or harness, in the dead of night, without so much as a sound. Even within Belgravia’s stifling quietness, her footfalls were barely discernable.

She was a not a ghost, but she could certainly give ghosts a run for their money… figuratively speaking.

“We’ve discussed this, Miss Yao.” Irene said, settling herself in front of her dressing table, picking through her jewellery chest with half-hearted interest. “You know I don’t like it when you do that.” She gave the Asian woman a teasingly pointed look through the mirror.

Soolin smiled pleasantly. “Sorry.” She didn’t sound at all sorry. “Help with the corset?”

“Yes, I rang for the maid. You know I do have servants for this sort of thing. All my personal staff are thoroughly vetted.”

But Soolin ignored her, reaching instead for the silk drawstrings of Irene’s corset, lacing the stiff garment around the woman’s torso. Irene drew a sharp gasp at the sudden tugging, which somehow felt like a silent reprimand coming from her quiet companion.

“And you know how easy it is to kill anyone; we can’t be too careful about letting other people close to your person,” Soolin replied calmly. “I’m sure whomever the Norton industry has selected as your staff is more than capable, but employees can always be pouched.”

Irene chuckled, shrugging, “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” A pause. “I do wonder where I’d got the luck to have met you though.” She commented light-heartedly as she stepped into her petticoat, drawing it up to be fastened over her whale-bone-bound waist.

Soolin did up the buttons of the petticoat at Irene’s back, the motion smooth and practised, complementing the Englishwoman’s every intent. Her oval face, young and comely, was well-schooled and mask-like, betraying none of her reactions to Irene’s word.

Without haste, she simply stated, “As I remember, you did not _meet_ me. I _found_ you.”

Irene replied nothing to that, knowing there was no need. Seven years, and she had yet to discern the other woman’s motivations. It baffled her that Soolin appeared not to have one, at least, none that stemmed from a source of self-interest. The excuse that she offered to explain why she had stayed on with Irene, that of her plan to avenge her brother’s death at Moran’s hand, was flimsy at best. Irene had never truly believed it, not because she suspected Soolin of being insincere, but because she suspected that it was an excuse Soolin used to fool herself, a vague purpose with which to keep her spirit occupied. She’d been a wanderer, devoid of roots and ties, drifting across the oceans and continents, with no specific destination in mind.

It was a mere coincidence that they had happened upon each other. The wagon Soolin had hitched-hiked had broken down along the soggy mud road and she had been forced to take a night’s refuge at a convent half a mile north. The sisters had been kind enough towards the oddly dressed foreigner to allow her room and board but had informed her that due to limited space she would have to share her lodging with another.

_That one is not long for the world. A terrible end, God forgive her sins._

With those words, the nun had left her to her business. Soolin had stood there in that cramped little room holding the few luggage that she had, staring at the feverish woman sleeping fitfully on a small cot across from hers.

Not knowing what possessed her, Soolin had reached forward and felt the woman’s pulse.

The Chinese have a belief called _yuan fen_ ; which in English is loosely translated into fate. A greater force that governs every life and event towards their purpose. Perhaps when she had arrived before the unfortunate Miss Adler already half gone from this world, Soolin Yao felt that it was yuan fen that she, a chemist and botanist and practitioner of eastern medicine, be brought to the sickbed of this stranger.

_Sister, may I stay for a few days more? I believe I can help this woman. If need be I will pay for room and board._

Painstakingly, Soolin had tended to her unexpected patient, and somehow through the long nights of keeping watch, changing bandages, and brewing bitter, foul-smelling tea that had had all the nuns just short of accusing her of witchcraft, Soolin had managed to save a life. A life that many had hoped would end.

And when she and Miss Adler had discovered through casual conversation one humid Massachusetts evening, that they were connected distantly through their individual engagement with Moriarty’s network...perhaps that was another sign as well, to both of them - beckoning one to stay and the other to trust. As different as they were in history and personality, in that convent in the late summer of 1889, they had one thing in common: they were both completely alone in this world.

_“Will you tell me about what happened to your child…the one who caused you to be like this?”_

_“My son is not the reason I am...like this, as you say. In any case, I doubt I will ever see him again.”_

“Father Sinclair has been made Bishop of London.” Soolin calm, quiet voice broke through Irene’s musing.

Irene lifted her gaze from the small wooden cross and its string of rosary resting on a cotton handkerchief upon her dressing table - a remnant of her time at the convent - and met Soolin’s waiting eyes through their reflection.

“I am aware.”

“Shall we send our congratulations?”

“Miss Yao, you can be such a tease,” smirked Irene, imagining the man’s face when he sees a celebratory fruit basket on his desk. She highly doubted that Father Sinclair would appreciate their particular brand of humour. No man enjoyed being stifled under the thumb of tiny women, especially those in possession of overly inflated egos.

Irene turned, exchanging a bemused little smile with Soolin. “Was the news article published as planned? I trust we did not run into resistance at the press.”

“None. Magnussen was more than willing to cooperate with any request of ours.”

“Cold as a shark he may be, but that man is greedier than a goblin. His loyalty to the Preceptor is paper thin and built mostly on fear and money - the Ordinem lines his pockets with gold and promises protection to keep his head on his shoulder. We need only to give him incentive to turn a blind eye to our activities.”

“Indeed, Moriarty’s name is still very much feared in the criminal world,” responded Soolin evenly.  “Sebastian’s encounter with the Ordinem agent the other night will surely give substance to the rumours you’ve kept tenaciously alive all these years.”

Irene’s eyes sharpened. “So you’ve figured it out. Very astute.”

The other ignored the compliment, but went on to pick up Irene’s hair brush and said, “The broker didn’t have to die though.”   

“He was the catalyst I needed.” Irene’s resolve was iron-wrought, and her decisions absolute.

“A terrible death for the man nevertheless.”

Irene swivelled around, pausing Soolin’s task by grasping one of her arm, “And do you think me cruel?”

The other woman met her gaze without fear or hesitance. “At times, your actions can be labelled as such, but if anyone were to understand your justification it would be me, and far be it for me to judge you for it.”

Irene let go of her with a sigh, turning back to her dressing table to shuffle this or that around absently, as if to avoid those dark honest eyes that were bottomless in their comprehension and acceptance of the world.

“You will remember that we did not kill him. The Ordinem did.”

Indeed, they were not the hands that swung the axe, but they were the minds who issued his execution. In the weeks prior to his death, Nader has been down in Africa on Ordinem-related business unbeknownst to his wife, who assumed he was off philandering with his mistresses. While unremarkable on paper, Richard Nader was a shrewed businessman with many upper class and aristocratic clientele. More importantly, he was one of the few people who’d spoken to the Preceptor in person and therefore knew his identity. Zanzibar had enjoyed many years of partnership with the Ordinem, and Mr Nader had been the loyal correspondence between the sultan and the Preceptor. But all partnership come to end one way or another. Post the sultan’s death/murder, in ordering her people to chase the poor Mr Nader across the African continent from Zanzibar to London like hunters rounding game, Irene had given enough cause for the Preceptor to believe that his vassal had been compromised. The Ordinem didn’t survive this long by taking chances, and their agents - the Others - were methodical and ruthless.

All Irene needed to do was ensure Sebastian Moran’s appearance while the Others made their kill to create the illusion of Moriarty that she desired…

Moran had been a dead man as far as anyone aware of the late Professor Moriarty was concerned. Even Sherlock, the man who supposedly brought him to justice, had believed him and the network defeated.

Not so.

As the instigator for examining the Ripper case, Irene knew her connection to the Norton family would put her and Godfrey under the Holmeses’ suspicion. For better or worse, they did not trust her and even less the crime family with which she was aligned. The Ordinem too would no doubt be wary of Norton’s involvement and by association hers…but with Moriarty’s name once again rising to the surface of this murky pond within which they played their game, Norton’s importance would be sidelined.

Irene stared at her reflection in the mirror. She had held onto her hate for seven years, containing it within her charred and blackened heart, not allowing the Ordinem even the slightest indication that she was a threat plotting against them. And in her hate, she waited and plotted and burned, silently and alone, counting for the day to come to topple a dynasty.

Before her return to London, Soolin had asked her if it would not be easier to simply eliminate the Preceptor. They had the means to do so, and their target was entirely unsuspecting.

But Irene was adamant that this was not how the game could be won. An organization as extensive as the Ordinem had become organic and self-sustaining.  Sherlock spent years dismantling Moriarty’s network for the same reason - kill the spider, the web remained. A quarter of the entire world pledged allegiance to this little island’, and the Ordinem had fuelled this nation to the height of its supremacy. If he weren't so stubborn, Mycroft Holmes should be very proud of what the Ordinem had done for his country.

In any case, an assassination attempt would be no small feat either. The Preceptor’s residence, though seemingly unprotected, was in fact quite impregnable.

The arrow was now on the bow, its string pulled taut. Irene worried the cold diamond of her engagement ring and wondered which limb the Preceptor was willing to part with first.

“I think it’s time.”

The brush in her hand paused mid stroke, and for once, Soolin’s neutral manner wavered. Irene’s sudden declaration had caught her off guard. It took her a moment before her surprise was absorbed within her doll-like mask.  

As before, her tone was neutral when she spoke again, “Then who shall be first?”

Before Irene could respond, the doorbell rang downstairs. Shuffling footsteps could be heard as the butler went to answer. There were exchanges too hushed to overhear before a thud announced the front door shutting.

Soolin’s eyes slid to the open window; she was curious to see who it’d been, but before she could, a maid arrived at Irene’s bedroom, curtsied briefly, and held out a clean square letter.

“This came for you at the door, madam.”

Irene accepted the note with a bit of confusion and surprise. Gazing down at it, she immediately felt her heart beat faster.

“Did the gentleman deliver it in person?”

“He did, madam,” replied the maid.

“Did he say anything else at all?”

“No, madam.”

“Very well, thank you. Oh, do bring some tea up for myself and Miss Yao. The usual will do.” Irene dismissed her staff with a nod and vague gesture, her mind already preoccupied. There was no name and no address on the letter, just a small wax seal holding the folded edges together. Still, she knew exactly who the sender was.

As, apparently, did her friend.

"If I may I must caution you,” Soolin spoke up.

"Caution me?" Irene’s tone was sharp. Soolin, she trusted, but when it came to the matter of sentiment, Irene rarely appreciated anyone else's input.

"You're distracted when you're with him. Perhaps you don't see it, but I see it and others do as well. Your relationship with Mr Holmes is none of my business but you mustn't leave others with the impression that you may be swayed or coerced into obedience for whatever affection you bear him."

"You're worried about Sebastian."

"You hold Jim Moriarty as leverage over the colonel - is it really such a leap to imagine that he would do the same to you? And your son-"

"James is quite protected, I assure you, as long as… as long as he is not my son.”

“But he _is_ your son.”

“Not in any way that counts.” Irene corrected. “As for his father, he’s more comfortable with a business relationship. He thinks Godfrey must be plotting a nefarious scheme and that I must be at the dead centre of it. His brother wants to use him to get to me, applying the same logic as you had just done - that I’m susceptible to Sherlock's persuasion. But to this day he still refuses to let me see James...the one thing I have wanted above all else; so just how tempted do you think I would be by anything else he could possibly offer?”

“James is still a boy; there’s time. But the colonel...he’s not a friend; he’s barely an ally. You have to be careful.”  

“And I will. Has he spoken with his sister?"

"No. He hasn’t attempted to make contact of any sort."

"Good. From what I gather, they were never close, so I don't suppose she'll be on his side. Nevertheless, we mustn't rule out any possibility of collusion. Sebastian is one thing, but Addison - Mary can be unpredictable.”

Irene turned away from the other’s woman calm yet uncomfortably penetrating gaze. Heading towards her wardrobe, her mind already began to drift from their earlier conversation to what outfit she should wear, not for any fanciful reasons she told herself, but because with Sherlock, any small, misplaced detail could give the man the upper hand. She could not afford to let him get under her skin.

Seeing she was no longer needed, Soolin made to leave. A part of her still remained worried. Irene had brought up progressing with their plan, but the timing was not what they had discussed before. The original decision had been to establish Irene securely within London’s society first and then chip away the Ordinem piece by piece. It seemed to Soolin that their pace was being unnecessarily accelerated, and a part of her wondered, feared even, if Irene had second thoughts of her marriage to Lord Aldenham now that Sherlock Holmes was in such close proximity.

Despite her many protestation to the contrary, Irene Adler did in fact feel for him deeply, and that - her intractable affection - was her Achilles heel.

“Hargreaves-Wyatt.”

One foot out the door, Soolin paused suddenly. “I beg your pardon.”

“The answer to your question. Jonathan Hargreaves-Wyatt. He will be the first. Telegraph the East Indies to let them know the progress is underway.” Irene held up a white blouse to her chest. “What do you think of this?”

“I think it goes well with the turquoise-waisted skirt.”

“Yes, it does, does it not.” She grabbed the aforementioned skirt and hugged both pieces of clothing in front of her as she examined the ensemble in the mirror. Sunlight spilled in through the white curtains and her dark-walled bedroom became instantly bright with summer spirit, an interesting dichotomy, just like her simultaneous delight and worry to see the consulting detective.  

Soolin said nothing, merely observing her for few moments more, before leaving as quietly as she came.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was going to be another scene at the end, but I thought I'll just post it now without that scene since I'm still working on it. Hopefully it'll be finished soon.


End file.
